Ep. 252 DYNAMIC DUO PRESENTATION COACHING?

You need a dynamic. It takes a village.

It takes more than a village. It takes a dynamic duo. Dynamic duo. Presentation, coaching. What? Mark, why would somebody need two coaches? Why? Why? Why? That's crazy.

That's a great. And a question to ask. And we're gonna get answers today from our two guests who are Chris McGuire and Michael Davis, on the faculty of stage Time. Let's just dive right in. Darren, talk about.

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.

Mark Brown, please welcome Chris McGuire. Michael Davis. This is crazy. We've all heard of getting a speaker coach.

Yes.

But I realize we do this every single week for years in stage time and there's such a value. And then Mark and I, you just joined me and we started working with ypo. I didn't want to coach some of them alone because you have a different skillset than I have a different skillset. And then Chris and Mike, they just coached Mikella, one of our friends from overseas working on her keynote because you and I were out of town and it's like, boom, you guys can do this. Like, this is great. And I realized there's such a value, but we never really sit back and talk about why two coaches. So, guys, welcome. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Darren. I'm in the presence of all this knowledge and greatness. I don't know.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, because of course you don't count because you're an author, you've been coaching for decades.

Yeah, Hollywood, all that big stuff. Yeah. Who cares? Look, Darren, I don't want our audience, particularly those who are not part of the stage time family, to miss what you just said because you blew by it really quickly. Through stage Time, we have weekly coaching calls live via, via video conference. And we always have two coaches for these calls. And Darren said, we've been doing this for years. It is not you. And surprise, surprise, it's now 20, 24 and 23 years ago, when I first began coaching Darren, I was not the only coach in the room. You hear Darren's story, he had a second coach with him, Dave McElhenne. So Darren was actually getting two on one coaching when he was coming up. It is not a new concept. It's been with us for over 20 years and it's about time people understand the power and the value of dynamic duo presentation coaching. And Michael and Chris, you just did that for a certified speaking professional from Europe recently and I'm curious to know what your thoughts were, what your experience was and what ideas you can share with our audience about the power of dynamic duo presentation coaching. Chris.

Well, I just, I just want to start by jumping in and thanking Mark for telling Darren that this thing has been going on for decades.

So.

Mark, Mark's whipping out the wisdom. He's like, Darren's been doing it, but I did it before him. So credit where credit is due. Yeah, I got a call from you guys to do this coaching with Michaela from France. She's the head of a. I believe she. It's a luxury business and she was speaking, she had a bunch of keynotes and wanted a little help on it. And so Michael and I double teamed the situation. We worked on it together, which was really great.

I was comfortable right away because Chris has been part of the Stage time faculty now since last year and I'm starting to get comfortable with his style. And I thought, Darren, it was a great suggestion. I thought the two of us would work well together. We did. She was thrilled. But what I liked about it is Chris with his unique background of comedy but storytelling. Because of so much work you've done in tv, Chris, you have a different perspective on storytelling even than our friend Michael Hague, who used to be part of our faculty, who brought from Hollywood. I just love that. Different perspectives, but at the core, we're all teaching the same concepts, but because we come with a different perspective, it's great. Aha's for the client. To me, it's the old adage, one plus one equals three. I really felt like that's what she got and I saw that in her feedback for sure.

Like, for me it's just like having another tool in the Swiss army knife, you know? Or like with Michael, you concentrated a lot more. More on certain areas, like the presentation aspect. We both were hitting story hard, both of us from different areas. I was hitting on the humor side, but we were both about like structure and making sure the story was clear and whatnot. But you like. I was really impressed with just the sort of stagecraft stuff, which I don't. It's not my. It's not my area of expertise. So I thought the client got like a much a different level of Benefit than they would have just with me. Because, you know, Michael's got all this experience, other ways of looking at stories and you know, the stagecraft and stuff like that.

Yeah. What I'm hearing, guys, a couple things is different styles actually are complementary, as in a compliment or support each other. And different perspectives create more options for the client. Right. And that's one thing that also markets. And he always tells our clients, you know, Mark and I have different. What's the phrase, Darren? Ninja skills. You say? How do you say that?

Skills. Absolutely. Every coach has their own ninja skill. What's their specialty? Where can they add the most value? And you're great at digging out the stories, the content, what's missing. And then wordsmithing. I'm word my thing. Cause I'm dyslexic.

That's not my strength.

That's actually quite clever, Darren. That's quite clever. I appreciate that.

Whenever I'm around Chris, I get funnier.

But my strength, it's the haircut. It's the haircut, Darren.

My strength is more the stagecraft, the character dialogue, the delivery of that. And it doesn't mean that Mark can't do that. I just see more because it's my perspective. I see more. When we were working with the CEOs, coming up with a stage plan like that, just as soon as I heard the story and then they had the paragraphs, I'm like, okay, move here, move here, move here. It was just so clear to me. And I think, guys, what, what we're talking about here is you get, or the client gets twice the value in half the time. Twice the value in half the time. So if anyone worked with any one of us, there'd be some brutal, crystal clear, obvious improvements they could make. That may be tiny tweaks, but they would make a ginormous difference. Mike.

Yeah, the thought on that too is if you're listening to this and you are a, let's say, client from our end, you're a speaker, you're a leader looking for a coach, you're going to get more than twice the benefit of having two coaches. Here's a benefit. If you're a coach, when you're working with someone else who's giving you a different perspective on your topic, you're always learning. I've been hosting stage time calls now for seven years. And every single week I'm with Darren, I'm with Mark, I'm now with Chris and our other coach, Jennifer. Jennifer. I'm getting wisdom all the time. You become a Better coach through Osmosis. I'll never forget the night a couple years ago. I got so excited. I didn't give very much feedback on that particular stage time call, but I looked at my notes and everything Mark had said and Jennifer, I'd like. That's a lot of what I took down. I must be paying attention to them every week. But you do. You get better just by being with someone who's a terrific coach. And I found that to be true for seven years now.

Chris.

I. I think so. And also I think people are. When you have two people, it's more engaging for the client. Also because you've got multiple voices happening, you have a different energy. I mean, I think I know my. Like when I'm working with somebody else, whether it's you, Darren, on our courses or with Michael is like my energy. I'll get animated because I'm excited about something you said or something you said just triggered something for me and I'm like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah. And this and whatever. And so there's more. I think there's more engagement from the coaches and I think more engagement from the coaches engages the clients.

I have a question, gentlemen, regarding how personality fits into all of this. Because we have four different gentlemen here, four different people with four different personalities. Darren's really lowkey. I'm excitable or. I'm sorry, I got it backwards.

I am low key.

Darren's more energetic. But do you find that when you bring your personality to the conversation and that difference, that nuance actually creates almost a relationship, a better relationship with the client? What's your experience, guys?

Well, I will say one of the things I love about it, just from a selfish standpoint, is if your initial thing is, I'm not sure how to open this conversation or whatever, you have somebody else who might have it in the. Might have it in the chamber. You know, I mean, occasionally on. On the. The core calls, I'll text Michael and I go, I got nothing. Michael, you're gonna have to start. And then I'll hop in after he breaks the ice. But, like, it's nice having somebody else there when, when you're trying to gather your thoughts together. Because sometimes it isn't always simple.

That's a great point because sometimes I can remember, I don't mean to call my brother, my brother Darren out, but there are times I can tell his phrase is either verbally or I look on his face. He'll say to me, I know to look. And I was like, I got nothing. We laugh at that. But there are times when for one of the coaches that it's in their wheelhouse, it just clicks and you take it and you go, the client's happy and you get to a point where the second coach, they pick it up and it's like, wow, you get so much. We did not really understand the power of that Chris, Michael, until we work with the YPO coaches and saw their reaction to when Darren said something, took him on the stage, worked with them. I went up, put them a video, used words and they, they told us how amazed, how full they were to have us both there for them. And it's not the first time we have done duo coaching. We've had a couple of clients, one works for a major company in Silicon Valley, I won't say which company it is. And they actually came back for another round of coaching a second time. Another client is international, happened to be in the country and we duo coach them Hybrid. Darren was live in the room, I was here in Georgia, virtual and it didn't detract from the experience. What I'm saying not only to you, Michael and Chris, but to our viewing listening audience is that this can work in different ways. When you have experienced coaches who want to work with you, who apply themselves and are willing, eager, as Darren says, coachable client. So we're not just giving you a concept where we have two gentlemen here who have done it. Darren and I have been doing it, we are still doing it and we continue to do it. And we want to offer you an option that not very many people think of. And the benefits we found were really quite honestly a blessing to us as well.

And I think the key that you guys mentioned was the triggering each other. The sometimes I got nothing. I know I'll come up with something but if Mark can dive in first, that will trigger something from me and oh, okay, now I've got a lot to add and I know if I had that same client by myself I would just be for a while, I'd come up with something but it's so refreshing. Which I would prefer duo coaching. Just like we do in the weekly calls we have, we coach three stage time members every week and they get 20 minutes of feedback. But it's not just 20 minutes of well, you know, you could get. It's like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Which is why I say you get twice the value in half the time because you're tapping in now. This just doesn't mean any two coaches. I still believe you need world class coaches People who are at that higher level and then it's going to fire, it's going to be quicker, it's going to be more fun. And Chris, great point on the more engaging because you just kind of pile on to each other and you can tell when each other's done with their ideas or thoughts but you just see things that the other coach doesn't by. While they're talking your brain's going like, oh, ooh, I got to remember this.

Mike, couple thoughts while you were saying that. Darren, if you're considering working with another coach, you got to check your ego because. And that's never been an issue at stage time and but I have been part of other groups where you could tell somebody needed to dominate and it's like, I'm not going to work well with this person. I don't need to be hurt all the time. But I do have some value to bring. So make sure it's somebody that you each understand. Look, we both have value to bring. This isn't a competition. Ultimately it doesn't matter which of you gave the the insight that was the light bulb moment for the client. As long as you can avoid that, it's going to be a fabulous experience for the other for the client.

You know, Mike, I really appreciate that comment because I don't know if Chris. Chris knows this or Michael, you may not know this either but this past year I have, I'm in with the, I'm with the Georgia chapter of the nsa, the National Speakers association and we have a speakers academy there. I know Vegas does has as well and other chapters do. My role this year has been the pro speaker coach. It's a role they assigned. I'm not the academy dean or the director of education, but my job is to go to boot camp and go on a zoom calls and be a coach to our coaching cohort. When they leave, they go out and they begin to build their career. So I'm privileged and blessed to do that. But I also shared a platform with a humorist who's been on tv, name of Jeff justice and he's a, he's a humor guy and it's so refreshing. I was there on Saturday for our boot camp or four hour speaker boot camp and both Jeff and I would hear a speaker, we'd both give our comments and he would say, listen, Mark is good at this piece. Let him handle that. Hear my thoughts. And the idea of ego is checked. I not because I'm a Toastmasters world champion, I must be the one in charge. No we understand where our strengths are. Our focus as coaches is to provide the best service to the client and the audience. And what's cool is like at stage time at the NSA Georgia cohort, whenever a speaker speaks, the cohort also gives their feedback. But the cohort sees how the duo coaching is working our chapter as well. So I guess, you know, even NSA is learning how it works. Darren, we've been doing it for a long time. I'm not saying we're teaching them, but.

Mark on the opposite end of that. And I'm going to go back to my early days of hosting the core calls. I was intimidated, and I knew all of you, right? But I was intimidated because I was still star struck. You know, I'm wor. I've been blessed to work with all these world champions. They want me to host this weekly call, and I would back off.

That's over. He says that's over about.

About a month.

The curse of wisdom.

About a month ago, I decided that. But it was. I was holding back. I didn't trust myself. And then one day I had the realization, wait a minute. I've had a lot of the same notes. So my point is, if you're working with someone who has a lot of titles or reputation, don't be so intimidated by it that you don't contribute, because there's something in you that other person saw that say, yeah, I like to work with you.

And I wish I remember exactly why when we started stage time, when I immediately just knew there need to be two coaches. I don't remember why or where that came from, but I do see the value, since we've been doing it for seven years, that every member they.

Darren, I do think I know where that may have come from because you taught me early on with Zoom, you should never do a Zoom call by yourself. You can't. And it probably started from.

That could be a moment of wisdom, Darren. One of many moments of wisdom.

I just thank God for that divine intervention, because I. I don't logically know where it came from, but I just knew it had to happen. It was just insight. And the big question. I'm gonna throw this out to all of you. Who's Batman and who's Robin?

Well, here's the thing. We're gonna have to have a tights competition.

I'm gonna bow out of that one.

You win, you're Batman.

I think you're gonna win.

I'm Batman.

I'm too short. I'm too short to not be Robin, but.

Well, here's what I think, though, taking that idea and seriously, going deeper, I believe that when Mark and I are working together, when it comes to content or structure questions, he's Batman, I'm Robin. When it comes to staging and delivery. Look, Mark, Mark can give the same feedback I can. I just see it differently, and I get excited about that. So I might say in that area, I'm Batman, he's Robin. But still, Robin has value. I just think it goes back to that ninja strength. So be careful when you're choosing a speaker coach. If you haven't seen it, go to getaspeakingcoach.com Mark and I did a whole program that's embedded at the top one of our podcasts about how to find the right coach for you. We might be working on different things, different ideas, different stories. We might have the story that we're still trying to figure out what's the story. We might have delivery. So we all have different skills. And I think if a coach thinks they know everything, get away, get away. That's ego. But, Chris, any other thoughts on Batman vs. Robin?

I don't know. I mean, I think what you said just kind of resonated with me because I know certainly, certainly with Michael, especially since we've been doing these story core calls, it's really been great for me to get a different perspective and know that one of us has got it at any. Like, one of us has got it, like, right up, right from the jump. And it's also, you know, again, like, the comment about that that Mark was talking about with the. The humor guy in. In Atlanta is like, knowing this, knowing the strengths of your partner are like, it's enormous. And it's just like, I don't even understand the ego because for me, I'm just like, no, that just makes life easier and more fun. I know if somebody's doing dialogue, doing something dialogue heavy with, you know, if. And if I'm doing something with Darren, I'll be like, no, no, let. Let Darren hit that. He's great. That's. That's Darren's jam. Or sometimes it'll be things like, which way are you approaching the story? You're approaching the story from the protagonist first is kind of my thing. But, you know, other times it's like, no, you should know what you have to say and go backwards and there's no right answer or whatever. But you get two different perspectives from people. And if I recognize something that my coaching partner has and I go, well, they're really. They're really good. At this, I'm like, no, no, no, let's just. I'll be here. I got some things to say, but I'm going to let you know. Michael, handle this.

Yeah, couple thoughts on that. And by the way, I need to interject something here because my aging brain is talking to me. We discussed the Dynamic Duo. We mentioned Batman and Robin. Some folks under 40 have no clue what that means because Batman and Robin were known as the Dynamic duo. The first TV series came out back in 1966 when I was five years old. I used to watch TV and sit. I heard the music. And many Batman movies now have no Robin as a sidekick, but they were called Dynamic Duo. And we have fun with the name. But one of the other aspects that I think we may have kind of glossed over a little bit quickly was the fact that depending on the need of the client at a specific time, who's Batman, who's Robin? You know, you're saying, well, at that particular point where they are now, their strength is this. And I've been blessed in that. I've known Darren Lacroix now 23 years. We understand each other. We almost, almost telepathically can tell it's time for Darren to step in. That's his jam. And we know where each other stands. And the fun part is, please understand this. If you are a coach and you're even considering duo coaching, consider this. Michael made reference to this earlier. I want to reinforce it. As you work together and see each other's strengths. As you help your clients, you are growing in the strength of your partner, and they're growing in your strength. With Darren, I'm growing in the stageology piece of it. He's a master at creating stage plans and visually showing the audience what happens. How do I know I'm growing? Because this past Saturday at NSA Georgia, at the boot camp, when it was over, one speaker came to me, says, mark, you like, go. I can now stage out my. My speech. I can set. See, it's. It's a. For me, it's a game changer. I said, yeah. My partner, Darren Lacroix is the one who created Stadology. Darren came to Georgia, NSA and taught theodology. So I don't claim it, but I've learned from him. And he always says I'm no wordsmith. He says. He claims he keeps a dictionary nearby when I talk in calls and so on. But I've seen him using four syllable words with greater frequency.

He did it last week once I heard him was that he did it last week once I heard him, well.

We laugh about this, but we work with a client, we have a Google Doc. So everybody sees the Google Doc for the script and people think, well, Mark is a word space guy. But Darren's plumping ideas in and their days are, Darren, you are on fire today. But I see his growth in the area. That's my strength. He's seeing my growth in the area. That's his strength. And a rising tide lifts all ships. So we're both getting better together and we can better serve our clients together. That's also great value in having duo coaching.

Mark, a follow up to that. I'm part of a group of coaches that works with storytellers and I was with them last week. One of the other coaches who I recently just met is a professional actor and acting coach. And what warmed my heart was when he stood at the front of the room and he gave all these insights on delivery. And I knew about 90% of it. It was because of my association with all you guys, just what I picked up over the years. And I thought, wow, that's the power of dual coaching. And what you. Something you said earlier too, Mark, and I'm paraphrasing, there's an old saw in sales or leadership or wherever I got it. And that is if you're getting into a partnership, if both of you have the same set of skills, one of you is unnecessary. And that's the beauty of doing this.

If you're listening to this and you're not part of stage time, consider joining us stagetimeuniversity.com if you are part of stage time and you know us well, I'm going to ask for forgiveness right now before I put this visual in your head. So now I think we all need to realize that we need both blue tights and red tights.

It's not Robin Hood. Men in tights. Don't get it wrong. Okay, you go. Any more thoughts for us? Chris and Michael, you might want.

May not want to attend the next core call because the whole tights thing now gives me ideas on how to just change it up. I don't know. Go ahead, Chris.

No, it's. No, it's great. It's been really, you know, this, this whole collaborative thing and I, and I've said this, I've said this to Michael, I said it to Darren, is that, you know, we're a Venn diagram. And you know, the great thing about it is we got just enough, we got enough overlap that we understand each other. And then the Extra stuff is the, the secret sauce of each one of us individually. But we, we. You often play in that, you know, that shared zone because it's a shorthand for us. So I just think it's, it's been great. I've been super enjoying, you know, hopping.

On the core calls, whether it was.

The humor call or the, or the storytelling call with Mike. And it's just been fun. I've learned a lot and it's really. And actually we haven't we mentioned Jennifer, but Jennifer is like, boy, she's got a whole different way of looking at things. And it was, it was fun to do a couple of calls with her who I had heard about and hadn't met. And she's just got a whole different style and super fun and, you know, I learned a lot listening and watching her. So I think it's all about that open mind, open hearts thing. You just, you just learn and grow. It's great.

That's wonderful. Now, Darren, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Michael.

No, I was gonna say, I agree with that. And also, Darren, when, when you first started working with me 22 years ago, one of the first insights you gave me was to be a sponge. That's true as a speaker. It's also true as a coach.

Right?

Be a sponge. When your other coaches, whether it's one or two or however many are talking, take it in because you're going to get better that way.

Awesome. Darren, I'm going to call an audible today. Normally when we have special guests, I do a quick recap, some points that they made. I'm not saying that Chris and Michael are not special guests. They're part of our stage time, faculty and family. But I do, I do want to share a couple of. You're really special, Chris. Yeah, I want to share a couple.

Of people trying to get the image of him in red tights out of my head.

I want to share a couple of quick insights that we gathered earlier today. And the first of all is that different styles do complement each other and different perspectives create multiple options for our clients. Right. Darren, you said Clarence, clients get twice the value at half the price and may even, even may get in half the time. And they may even have more than that. As a coach, you actually learn more because you're learning from me, from your fellow coach. You become a better coach as a result. And multiple coaches are more engaging and increase the dynamic in the room cultures. Coaches can trigger each other's thoughts when they think I got nothing. Right. But Michael says we must Also, check our ego at the door. We want to compliment each other as far as Batman and Robin. The roles may interchange, but the tights won't. And both coaches will grow in each other's strengths as long as we all choose to be a sponge. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Mike, for your insight today. I really appreciate it.

Darren, bring us home twice the value half the time. Two perspectives. If you've been thinking about getting a coach, I'm going to encourage you. If you truly want to catapult forward faster, getting two perspectives is more fun, more valuable and less time. And guys, pleasure to work with you. I'm going to work on getting that visual out of my head for both of you, but don't be surprised if game changers next year. You have costumes.

That's hilarious.

Get a speakingcoach.com, our website for duo coaching.

Get a speaking coach.com. you can find our whole staff there. There are duo coaching options. You could also. It's not wrong if you want to go with one, but we just want to highlight why it's important, why duo coaching is much more valuable and quick to get where you want to go if you want to own the stage. And speaking of own the stage, we're doing an event next month, depending on when you're listening to this in July hybrid in Las Vegas. All of our coaching slots, our VIP slots are sold out, but you can come and be in the room and I think you will see the value by sitting there coaching alongside with us and it's very interactive. You're going to be part of the coaching process. You will see things differently after those three days. Chris McGuire, you had a thought?

I did, but it's a little lost now because. But I just want to point out that Mark Brown is a superhero. He did all the takeaways in like one in 60 seconds. He did all the takeaways for the whole call. So I think he needs a superhero name. I think that from now on, I'm going to call Mark Brown Captain Takeaway because it is definitely a superpower. I was. I was blown away by. I didn't even see him write notes. Was unbelievable.

Well, I only hope that that title will get me some points at Chinese takeout. Darren, I'm done.

He got a T shirt humor from Mark Brown. We're going to give him a cape and tights next year. Hey, Darren, as far as podcasts go, this one was really tight. I'm out of here.

Thank God.

Oh, man.

Make sure you subscribe to our show. Remember to subscribe because if you miss a week, you miss a lot.

If you like this episode, please leave us a review. If you want to get more from Mark and Darren, check out Stage Time University where they provide experienced presenters a proven path and world class feedback. To become the speaker everyone is talking about, go to stagetimeuniversity.com join us next week if you're going to take the time to prepare a presentation, make it unforgettable.