Ep. 304 7 STEPS TO UNFORGETTABLE - PART 1

Hey there, Mark Brown. It's been a while since we launched our book Deliver Unforgettable Presentations. However, I was in NSA Southern California National Speakers association speaking about multiple streams of speaking income. And I was just reminded of we take the process for granted. It's our life, it's our world. We've been doing this. It's our job to make sure everyone knows people want to be unforgettable. And I just think it's time to revisit the seven steps. Because you want to be unforgettable. Well, you need an unforgettable process.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome. 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.

Man. Thank you, Darren Lacroix. Already you've given our listeners who are paying attention the first jewel, first gem. To be unforgettable, you need an unforgettable process. And Darren, you preface by saying multiple streams of income. One other way people can earn income from the business is to provide a resource, a product or a book that their clients and their students can use as a resource. And as I said earlier, we were able to put together a book with the help of the inimitable fripp, one of a kind called Deliver Unforgettable Presentations on video. You can see the COVID If not, you can check it out later on. But that book is a very quick read and I'm pleased, Darren, to tell you mentioned NSA earlier. I'm just so pleased to report to our listeners and friends who followed us for a long time or for a short time that this book, deliver unforgettable presentations in 2025 became a textbook for the Speakers Academy at the Georgia chapter of the National Speakers Association. I was so thrilled when our president called and said, mark, we want to make yours and Darren's and Crip's book a resource, a textbook for our Speakers Academy. And these are professional speakers going through an academy process to become good at what they do. And we're thankful to NSA Georgia. We're thankful to our publisher, of course, Henry DeVries, for allowing us to provide this resource. Want to spend some time today looking at the seven steps we provide in this book, seven steps to Deliver an unforgettable presentation.

Yeah, Mark, I want to go back to the multiple streams real quick because one of the things I talk about in that presentation is it's our responsibility to give people next steps. So if you're doing a motivational keynote, an inspirational keynote, even a one hour training, and you get them all excited, awesome. Well done. But now what? What is the logical next step? You know, at the beginning of my career, when I was a wannabe and just figuring it out, I didn't know what to tell people, but I started realizing it was my responsibility. So I talked about the Judy Carter book. So even if you don't yet have your own, I still believe it's our responsibility to say, okay, look, that's the best of what I have within the hour or 90 minutes or whatever time you have. You can't teach everything you know in an hour. If you do, okay, that's another issue. That's another podcast. But I honestly believe it is our responsibility to, once we get them excited, to lead them in the next direction. What's the next step? So back in the day when I didn't have a book, I used to recommend the Judy Carter book. So, okay, so what's next? You want to learn how to be funnier? Go get this book by Judy Carter. It helped me. So at least get in the habit of recommending resources. And then when you have your own, then obviously yours is a logical next step. So this is one of our next steps. But I thought we'd review the process because I always say, even in the humor bootcamp, if you shortcut the process, you shortcut your result. And if you want to be unforgettable, you have to have an unforgettable presentation. And Mark, little quick backstory. When I got called to do multiple streams of speaking income, I haven't delivered that presentation in probably a decade. And it was at one of the other NSA chapters, and apparently they were looking at another chapter's old website and I was in their archive and they're like, we want that. I was like, well, here's what I talk about now. We want that. Okay, So I dusted off the keynote slide presentation and. And obviously back then, when talking about CDs and DVDs, I had to kind of update my content, but it reminded me of the process. I had to look at what I had. I already had the structure down, but now I had to update. And I look at things differently as a different world now with online programs, AI, et cetera. So it was great that I had to look at the process, and then part of my last step is. Is going through the slides again and again. And then I smooth it out, I go through it again. I tweak this one, I add this one. Oh, I could do this story. This story would be perfect. And so it's that constant evolution. Resolve to evolve.

Mark, real quickly, I know we're gonna get to the seven steps, but I'm hoping our listeners. Viewers caught something else Darren said in his update process. And I can recall being in Darren's house watching him literally punching labels for his CDs. We did CDs back in the day, but you said you had to update your site. I said, oh, I can use this story. I paused for a second. We have been teaching, preaching, exhorting, encouraging, and cajoling people to maintain a story folder. And right there in your process of upgrading your slides, you go, oh, I have a story I can use. We have stories we can use to upgrade our own processes and our own programs. But if we don't maintain our story folders, we may miss opportunities just like the one Darren had to update his program and deliver what the audience asked for. And it's key. And for you to give a good presentation, no, an unforgettable presentation. Need a structure that allow you to give your client what they need. So, Darren, let's do this.

All right, Mark, so going right to the handbook. Good to have your own content in your book so you can take a look at what you said. And that's the cool part of this process. You know, we may tweak the process, we may enhance the process, but the process is solid. We, you and I use this same process over and over again. Okay, we're gonna cut this into two parts. This podcast will be parts 1, 2, 3, or 4, wherever the it feels right. And then we'll continue the rest of the seven steps in part two. So part one, finding your content. Step one. Excuse me. Finding your content. Finding it. Mark, your thoughts.

First of all, I really have a. We did. I'm really happy we did this one first, because you and I both know eager, potential budding speakers. Oh, I want to speak. I want to speak about what? I don't know, but I want to speak. I want to do that. Darren, have you ever met anyone who said that to you before? Like, really? Yeah, I want to. I love what you guys. I want to do what you do. Watch the topic. Well, I can talk about this. I can talk about that. And they have no idea where they're going, but all they know is they want to be on the platform. If that is you, we're not picking on you. We're saying, we understand, we appreciate it. But you have to realize that good content comes in my experience, from my experiences, lessons learned, falling on my face, failures, mistakes. And those lessons come through experiences which manifest for me in stories. And one of our processes is to mine our lives to find the stories that will connect. Now, same time, we will ask you, what do you want to talk about? And whatever topic you choose, it has to have evidence, which we believe from your own personal life adds that much more value to it. But you must realize your life contains content and material for whatever you talk about. The question is, are you mining your life for that content that you're going to need to make your message memorable and your presentation unforgettable?

Yeah, Mark. And I think of when I first went to my first NSA convention. And in Washington, D.C. there's a woman named Bobby Gee there. And I had been doing stand up a little. I just found speaking. I wanted to talk about this. And she asked the question. It's like a breakout room. She asked the question. She said, why should anyone listen to you? And I thought, I don't know, lady. That's why I'm here. I'm trying to figure that out. But she asked again, like, what have you done? What have you accomplished? Why should anyone listen to you? And that's a deep question. Like, I see people who. There's specifics I want to use, but I won't. Who want to teach, you know, leading a great company, but they've never led a company before. You know, it's like, okay, that's a great aspiration. But I believe, and this is our truth, that you have to speak from your own experience. And if you don't yet have that experience, okay, go get it. Mess up and then talk about what you learned. So at the beginning, I started asking around, I started looking at, well, why should anyone listen to me? And I realized, whoa. I became a comedian, even though I wasn't funny, even though I wasn't the greatest comedian in the world. I wasn't even a headliner. I didn't realize I had some value there. When I came into nsa, it was like having instant credibility. You do stand up. What? I was like, yeah, I have the courage to go up and bomb, like. But I didn't realize that was a thing. And then eventually I started getting clearer on my topic, and then it was humor. I realized that's where I came From. And I also love business. And so Rick Siegel, one of my first mentors, he was working on a book called Laugh and Get Rich, Laugh and Grow Rich. That's a whole nother subject on titles. But anyway, he invited me to join him to create that. So what we did is we went out and interviewed CEOs who ran companies where humor was a part of their philosophy. So I literally reached out and asked to interview people, and each story became a chapter in the book. Well, now I could use those stories. See, I didn't have the experience, but I got the experience by tapping into other people's experience. And then I had the permission to use that. My first CD product was Learn how the Pros Make Them Laugh. Because I realized in the speaking world, knowing that I did stand up, people were asking me questions, well, how do I be funny? How do I write a book? How do I write a joke? How do I do this? And I was like, well, I don't have a good answer, but I have mentors that I can go and sit down and ask. And so I interviewed four humorists and four comedians that I had a relationship with, and then that became my content. Now, if you already have been in banking for 20 years or have helped someone in recovery, have gone through recovery, now you're helping other people in recovery. Well, that's real life experience. You got to start with what you know. Not. I want to be a speaker, and that's a tough one. But people want to learn from people with experience.

That's it.

I mean, if you're listening to this, if Mark and I were just regurgitating all content, we've never done or lived, how would you feel about that if we were just regurgitating? Well, we might have picked some good stories. You might have got something. But we're really not talking from a deep place, Mark.

Well, that's true. But bear in mind you, this may sound odd, but you may not know how much value you really have. You may think, yeah, my life is not. I only did that I told a story before. We were having a conversation one time in one of our coaching calls, and an individual was trying to talk about his recovery and how he built his body, began doing his physical fitness thing. And in the course of conversation, we're doing a story dig, trying to find his story, and he was really drilling down on how he became a fitness coach and how he transformed his life. And then he said, you know, after I got out of jail was the first time I went to the gym. He said, what after what? You what? What? What? Yeah, when I got out of prison. Wait, there's a whole new story there. But he didn't have. He didn't see value in the experience. He had one getting there, navigating it and getting out and building his life, a whole part of his life. He didn't see the value there. And we may tend to look at other people who we deem to be quote, unquote, successful, but we don't realize our own lives have value. I talk about the fact that, you know, I'm a Jamaican immigrant living in the usa, and I have often found myself glibly saying, yeah. People say, when did you get here? I was 18 and I had 40 bucks. I went to New York City to live with my aunt and her two kids in an apartment. And they go, wait, back up. You were What? You were 18? Yeah, I had 40 bucks. But you left your home country with 40 bucks to start over. Your life is a story of a journey. Have you ever thought of sharing that? And your life may have other aspects which you think are quote, unquote, insignificant, but there's content within your life. Start with what you know. And what you may not realize is you may know more than you think you know about a topic to the point where there are individuals out there who will want to hear from you. As a word of caution, and I say this humbly, I am amused at times when I present at education conferences across North America. I've spoken in schools outside North America, and people are eager to hear what I have to say based upon my experience. And for the longest while, I was hung up on the fact that I don't have a postgraduate degree or a college education. I came to America out of high school fresh with 40 bucks. I had to go to work, got married quickly, pretty quickly, had kids, and I raised my family. Married now 43 years. I don't say this to brag, but I always thought to myself for a long time, I'm not qualified to offer any advice because I don't have a college degree or a postgraduate, you know, certification. And I realized that my life experience of almost 64 years does have value. And maybe you don't think your content is there because you don't think you are, quote, unquote, a licensed, certified expert. But as Darren said earlier, if you've been through the experience, chances are you have value. Someone else who is going through what you've been through already. So look at your life and find good content that already exists that will support whatever point you make and give your audience a reason to lean in and listen to you.

Yeah. So in the book, we ask you 144 content generating questions. This is to build, if you've followed us before, what we call the story file. Your story file. Look, even if leadership is your thing or customer service is your thing, it might be a story from your youth that is a personal story that makes a business point. Personal stories can make business points and business stories can make personal points, depending on your subject. So a few of them, like right out of our book, there's categories. We have universal questions, entrepreneurial questions, founders questions. But looking at this, who? Who? Just a few of the questions right out of the book. Page 33. What did your parents do? What did your parents do? Like, what did they do for a living? How does that tie into your subject? What did you learn from that? What did you see? What did you observe? What advice did they give you that you still remember? What advice did your parents give you that you still remember and maybe still is part of your value system?

That is your Forrest Gump moment. Mama always said, seriously. No, Darren, seriously. I'm sure everyone hearing this can recall what a parent or parent figure in their life told them, what advice they got when they were young. That individual from the individual who was a mom, a dad, a grandparent, who served as a, as a, as an adult mentor to them. We can remember that. And maybe you can use that in a presentation. It's already in you. It's already there. Mark.

I'm just thinking maybe it's the opposite too, where your parents told you this, but you learned a universal truth, that that was incorrect.

That's true too.

It could have been bad advice, even though maybe their intentions were good. All right, who were your best childhood friends? Huh? What did you learn? What stories did you have from growing up with your besties? What did you love to do together with your childhood friend? Were you interested in sports? So these are questions that we explore in the book. But if you're figuring out, even if you go for a new subject like me and multiple streams of speaking income, where I revisited an old program that I did, but I had to update it with new stories and new content, I could still say how lucky you are to create product now that you can create a book and you can do a short run, I had to do 2,500 self published books because back in the day that's all that they would allow. That's a minimum order was 2,500. So they pulled up with pallet trucks to my mom's home because I was living back at home trying to be a motor motivational speaker living at home. And so I could use that to make a point, but updated it to connect it to how it is today as opposed to how it was back then. Mark, any other thoughts on Find your content?

I want to reiterate a point you made about going back to your youth. I have found myself giving talks on leadership and I go back to my high school football, AKA soccer days and tell stories about my childhood that are applicable now to leadership. So please understand, you may not. You may be asking the question, what relevance does my childhood have to my position now? Or my talk about leadership, customer service, teamwork, whatever it may be. If you stop and go back over your life with the maturity you have now and revisit some of those experiences, you realize, oh, I can talk about that. Using that particular story. Darren, you use one of my old photographs from 1971 about stretching ourselves and striving to be better. You use that to this day, I'm talking, I was what, 10 years old? That's a 54 year old photograph that Darren Lacroix is using in his program to talk about stretching ourselves beyond our own expectations. And I mean, Darren even asked Mark, I need that picture, like why? But he saw the value in a piece of my life that was over 50 years old that was relevant to a program he's doing now. So never discount the value of your experience from childhood, but catalog everything you've been through, the bosses you've had, the jobs you had, and use that to find great content that will support you as you begin to build your unforgettable presentation. Step one Find mind content.

Yeah, it's not always easy to mine your own life. Sometimes we need that outdoor, outside perspective. Mark, I remember when I was working on Ouch. And we've said this before, but reminding us what's important to us, when you asked choose a child in your life. If you were going to die tomorrow, what one lesson that you learned from your life would you pass on to that child? And it forced me to think, it forced me to go deeper, but more importantly, it forced me to find out what matters to me. And so even if you speak about leadership, well, what matters to leadership about you? If you knew your grandchild was dreaming of being a manager or a leader and they or they wanted to run a company, well, what lessons that you learned from your life would you want to pass on to that child or grandchild? You know, child's one thing, but grandchild. Well, now it becomes pure.

Realize you have content in your life. You do. And don't be afraid to use it. Drill down.

Yep, drill down. Create the story file and it's never gonna stop. But once you have it and it becomes a new habit, it will serve you. Mark, we may have to make this a seven part series, I think.

Well, I love that. Once you have it, make it a habit. I know. Bad dad jokes. Nice.

All right, let's at least get to step two in this episode. So step two. Clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity. And that seems so passe.

I know, but you always tell people, you said there's one thing Mark and I always teach, it's clarity, clarity, clarity. And you're right, it sounds almost simplistic. But if we're not clear, Darren, will the audience ever get our message?

Nope. Simple answer? Nope. And here's the challenge. We think we're clear, but we know all of the backstory. We know all the rest of the information about that story. But the listener doesn't. The listener doesn't. It's very easy to say things and say this and go off in this direction, go off in that direction. Now they're their mind or eyes glaze over and now they're just thinking about what they need to do as soon as you're done talking so they can get up and clap politely. But if you're going to be unforgettable, you got to understand clarity is so important. And we have a challenge for you. Our clarity challenge. Go even take one story. Take just one story or one point of wisdom and maybe the supporting evidence and go and deliver that somewhere. Just that. And then ask your audience what they got from it. Ask your audience if it was clear. Don't start. Well, what I meant to say was. Well, what you. No, no, that you're missing the point. They don't get that information. They can't ask you after the convention. They can't ask you after your presentation because they're running to break and they gotta get coffee, they've gotta empty. They've got to go to their next session. You don't have time to clarify after.

And Darren, I'm glad you mentioned that because one of my pet peeves you might want to call it is an individual came to my mind yesterday. As a matter of fact, when presenters will use language acronyms and so on without realizing not everybody in the audience might fully understand. We need to be aware of context. We use the FRIPP speech model and one of the first things we look at, Darren, you always talk about this is what is the audience thinking? If we can be aware of what the audience does not know, we have to be very careful to be clear to them to avoid any misunderstandings. And clarity is key to make sure the audience not only understands what you have, but within the context of your presentation. And the more clear it is, the more the audience will get it and be able to respond with clarity. Clarity, clarity, Clarity is key. Don't make it complicated. Keep it simple.

And as we say over and over again, the most important part of the presentation is the thought process in the listener's mind. You have to understand what you say and how they process it, and then what you say and how they process that. What are they thinking if you don't understand that, if you don't get that, that's the value of having a coach. A coach can kind of get. Their whole job is to translate what the audience is going to hear, what they need to hear, what's missing, what is too much, which obviously there's a lot of too much, or the wrong information, which sends the audience's brain off on a tangent. If you send the audience off on a tangent that is not related to this point. You missed the point of clarity. When I was working on my championship speech, I mentioned the Fun Sucker, and it was a very funny joke from my standup days. But after the presentation, I would ask people, what did you take from this? And so many people were commenting on the Fun Sucker, which was not part of my point. Even though it got a laugh, I had to pull it out for clarity's purpose.

Yeah, that's heavy. And, you know, it's funny. We talk about. You gotta be clear on your message, first of all, because sometimes we have so much we want to share and we talk for a while and people wonder, well, what was the point? I heard that point. I think I heard that point. They concluded two or three different times. I'm kind of confused by it. You want to be clear on your message, which is why in the clarity section, we talk about the premise statement, the thought, an idea you're going to pass on to the audience. You want to be clear on that. And there's two thoughts I want to share. What I'd like to leave with you on this point. One is this. We often say, never give the audience a reason to take a mental detour. Ever give the audience a reason to take a mental detour. Oh, my brain goes off on that because you let me down that path. It's going to be hard to bring them back. And other one is never leave an unanswered question in the minds of your audience. Never leave an unanswered question in the minds of your audience. Like going to a movie and the movie ends, you're like, wait, wait, what happened? I'm missing something here. That's it. That's the ending. What? We've all seen that. And if the audience feels that in your presentation, then you might become unforgettable for the wrong reason.

Nice. Well, Mark, we covered step one and step two. You got to digest this. So if you want step three, join us next week for the Unforgettable Presentations podcast. Seven Steps to be Unforgettable. Part. I don't know if we should call it part two because now we got numbers and competing. Join us next week.

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If you like this episode, please leave us a review. If you want to get more from Mark and Darren, check out Stagetime 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.