Ep. 305 7 STEPS TO UNFORGETTABLE - PART 2

Hey there, Mark Brown. Well, hey, last week we talked about step one and step two. If you haven't listened to last week, go and check out last week. So reminder, step one is finding your content. Step two is clarity, clarity, clarity. So what's next?

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time, stage time, stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation, Ahas. Let's dive right in.

All right there, Marc Brown. So we are going into our seven step process, right out of our book, Deliver Unforgettable Presentations, which is a seven step process. And as we said last week, you shortcut the process, you shortcut the result. If you want to be unforgettable, follow the process. It's proven.

Indeed. Yeah, we had step one last week about finding content and step two, clarity, clarity, clarity. The key here, though, I think begins in step three. It's called structure this. If I were in New York, it's a yo, buddy, structure this. But it's very bad for a Jamaican trying to be from Brooklyn, New York. Forget about it. It's not going to work. But the idea of having a good structure will help you stay in line, keep you on pace. That way you don't veer off into a tangent and get lost in the weeds trying to create your presentation. Now, Darren, I know you have some personal thoughts about structure because in your career over 30 years, you've seen different structures applied, some very simple and some very simplistic. And I know one we talked earlier was, you know, you make a point, tell a story. Another one was, I'm going to tell you this. You tell them what you're going to tell them. You tell him and tell them what you told him. Honestly, when I first began speaking, I heard that. Tell him, tell him, tell him. Back in the 19, early mid-1990s when I first joined Toastmasters, I can recall vividly a member of our club, Michael, who was a very prominent member, who was very, very good as a speaker. He told me, tell him what you're going to tell him. Tell him and tell him what you told him. I was taught that structure very early in life. Later on I was told, tell a story, make a point. Tell a story, make a point. Tell a third story, make A third point, tell a fourth story, make a fourth point. And that was how you do it. And then one day I sat back and heard you explaining not only the value of those systems, but the shortcomings of those systems which has led us to unearth, uncover with Patricia Fripp, a structure that is superior and tighter than those two I first mentioned. Now, there may be a few listeners here going, what in the world he talking about? I'm confused by all this. So very briefly I'm going to break down those first two structures and turn to Darren to discuss our structure. Very quickly, the first one, tell them what you're going to tell them. I'm going to talk about this. Tell them, talk about it. Tell them what you told him. And in recap, I talked about these three. It works. It covers points fairly, fairly clearly. It does that. But not everything flows the way it should. Darren, you gotta jump in here, man. I can see your speed coming through your ears.

Well, look, for those of you who are toastmasters, if you're just getting started and you are dealing with the fear of public speaking and you only have three to five minutes, that's all you can handle. But that's not an unforgettable keynote or training structure. It's fine for getting started. It's a simple basic structure that helps you kind of organize your thoughts. It helps make it relatable to the audience. So there's nothing wrong with it. It's just too simplistic for being unforgettable for 45 minutes. That's what we're saying. So tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them, tell them what you told them. That's training wheels for getting started. Let it go. Take the training wheels off. And like you mark in the 90s, I then heard, have an opening, have a closing, and in the middle, tell a story, make a point, Tell a story, make a point, tell a story, make a point, tell a story, make a point. The challenge with that, it's not bad advice, but it's not world class advice and it's not gonna help you be unforgettable. The problem is because this story and that story and then that story and then that. What's the order? Why? What's the overriding principle that all these stories are based on to deliver that unforgettable message? They're not cohesive. Big word for me. They're not cohesive and they're not working together for one unforgettable outcome. And guess what, you may have magic moments with that There may be some beautiful moments in one of the stories because it's a well told story, but the structure is not digestible. And often we forget that there's different learning styles in front of us. There's people with varying experience levels in front of us. You have the new person who just started the association or just joined the company last week, and they need hope, they need clarity, they're not sure what they got themselves into. Then you have the veteran who's been around longer than you. They're sitting there with their arms crossed sizing you up. If they're gonna bring over the event planner and tell them they'll yank you off the stage cause you're, we don't know. But the veteran who has more experience, they're kind of sizing you up to see if they're gonna back up what you say or pull people aside, the leaders aside and say, that's bs. We don't know. You have the skeptic, you have the analytical person who just needs the numbers. So we can't just throw a point out and expect people to receive it and believe it. We have to back it up with proof.

Yeah. And having a good structure allows you as a presenter to not only have the points you want to make, you have enough supporting evidence. And a proper structure gives you the opportunity to to cohesively weave each point and supporting evidence together with proper transitions to create a flowing, cohesive, coherent presentation that covers not only the points you want to make, but different ways for the audience to receive it and get evidence of it. Simply telling a story, making a point might be helpful, but it's not cohesive, it's not business flows in a sequence. It's not clear that you're on a journey with your audience to a specific destination where each step is strategically created for a purpose. And leading back to what we mentioned last time, the premise of your presentation. Good structure keeps you on track, even if for some reason you have to cut something short or put something in. Having a proper structure in place keeps you along the path you create to get to that destination, which is enlightenment, education, entertainment, inspiration, whatever the audience is going to receive. And you have to always ask yourself, what do I want the audience to think, feel and do after my presentation? A good structure keeps you in line to accomplish that goal as well, in service to your audience. So you really need a good structure to be unforgettable, to be remembered, to be repeated, and, and to be rememberable in the minds of the audience.

And here's how I distill it down. Why does structure matter? Two critical reasons. Number one, it gives the audience clarity. They can follow along. And number two, it gives you confidence. If you get a random comment or random question, you can go off, you can handle that question. We come right back and we know exactly where you are. So let's go back to structure. If I was on stage, somebody asked, a random thing happened, the fire alarm goes off. All right, so let's get back to structure now. So that was the point that we were talking about. It's clear we're back. The audience needs clarity and we need confidence. That is why structure matters. And Mark, you and I have been using this fripped speech model for decades. And, and it makes it so simple. It makes it an easy process to follow, an easy process for the audience to digest. And I will say, the first time I saw it, I was like, I heard choirs of angels and I was like, oh, I understand now why the structure of tell a story, make a point, tell a story, make a point, tell a story, make a point. Why that is not strong enough to be unforgettable. And so at first, this structure may be a little overwhelming. If you're newer, if you've been around a while, you could probably adapt to it quite quickly. But what's beautiful is now you can create better presentations more quickly. Mark.

Yeah, and when you said better presentations more quickly with a proven structure, and this may sound amazing to some people, but. But the structure we use is the Fripps speech model, which allows us to create an unforgettable 45 to 60 minute keynote or a training on a single sheet of paper. Right. You got to get the book to find the details here. But I'm telling you, I've used this time and time and time again for years now. And when we have that kind of model in place, once you have the structure, it matters not what your talk is going to be about. You can take a. Darren has taken three day trainings with that model, one hour keynotes with that model. I've done 50 minute presentations with the model. It's not the length of the program, it's the power behind the program. And the structure enables, indeed empowers you. The structure empowers you to create a well put together a cohesive program regardless of your content, regardless of the type of talk. It may be in a way that you know is going to work. And you can use that structure no matter what you're doing time and time and time again. It has a long shelf life and quite Simply, that particular structure works. How do I know? I use it and I've proven it time and time again. That's why it's in the book.

Yeah. And it allows you to customize as well. If you know your presentation inside out, but you're speaking to the entrepreneurs of association of America. Well, how does this relate to them? And then we can pull out some of the evidence from each of the points of wisdom and we can insert custom evidence from that audience. If we did our research, if we did interviews ahead of time. So if you're watching the YouTube version, I'm holding up the book now with the FRIPP speech model. And if you go to deliverunforgettablepresentations.com we've got some tools that you can download for free. So go to deliverunforgettablepresentations.com and check that out. And Mark, I just think this is too important to go on to the next step. I don't want to dilute this. I want to keep this strong and clear. But the structure matters. And once you understand this structure, you, you will think differently. You will think in a more organized format and again, just give better presentations more quickly and most importantly, be able to customize it more quickly without having to create a whole new slideshow. You just take that one, do duplicate, and then you pull out some of the evidence, pop in some of their evidence, and boom. And it looks like you wrote the whole presentation just for them.

Yeah, it's in a very simplistic term. It's almost like a copy and a paste template. But you know what, people use templates because they work. And the structure, the template that this structure provides is definitely a guaranteed sure fire way to work. And I'm so privileged that we got to work with, with Fripp on this because it's her brainchild. And you said that you went to a program once, nsa, and she was talking about and it was like, bing, a light bulb went up in your head when you realize, oh my goodness, I don't need to repeat all the work I've been doing every single time I do a new speech. That's the beauty of it. You don't have to repeat the work every single time. You simply apply a template. The principles are there. Oh, now it becomes easier to create a presentation. You begin to use rhetorical devices because it's all embedded, it's all built in. And once you get accustomed to doing it, it becomes second nature and you literally reduces your time investment by significant percentage over time. 75%. Okay. Now I'm putting in 60% of the work. Okay. I've cut off 40%. I've cut 50%. Now it just flows. And after a while, when you see the structure work, try it, use it, employ it, implement it, embrace it. And after a while you'll simply use it as your go to.

Yeah. Just one more idea on customizing it. When I used to customize back in the day, I would have an idea from an interview, a pre interview, and then I would have to try and figure out in the flow of what I had. I would have to try and figure out where it would not disrupt the flow much or where it would go into the flow. And that was a lot of work with the FRIPP speech model. I know, clearly. Does it help this point? This point or this point? Is it open or close? It's clear and simple. So, Mark, we talked in the last episode about. Or maybe it was the beginning of this episode, I'm not even clear, but we talked about the training wheels. Okay. That was this episode. Sorry. So earlier in this episode we talk about the training wheels. Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them. So that will just get you up in front of the audience and you need stage time. Stage time, Stage time. Your brain can't handle more than that because you're freaking out. So then we go to tell a story. Make a point now. Okay, you got the training wheels off, but you go to the. Move over to the fripped speech model. Now you've got a beautiful 10 speed. Once you get comfortable with the Frip speech model, you'll think differently and then you'll have an E bike.

Oh, there you go, man.

It will pedal for you, if you will. It'll do the heavy lifting for you. There's still a little bit of work, but it just. It's so much simpler and so much cleaner and so much clearer.

Definitely. By the way, an E Bikes report. We saw E Bikes, was it? We were in Barcelona. They're really popular there, right? In Europe.

Yeah. Yep.

Lot less pedaling too.

Yes, yes. It almost doesn't seem fair. All right, so last episode, if you haven't heard it, we talked about step one, which I'm going back to my own notes. Step one is find your content. By the way, the reason we do the find your content first, Step one in our book is that you need to be able to populate the FRIPP speech model. What do I populate it with? The content from your story file. So it helps organize your thoughts in a logical, digestible manner for your audience. So step one is just create it. But here's the cool part about creating it as you do step two, three, four and five, you're going to come up with new ideas that weren't even in your story file. So you'll continue to build that. And then the more inventory you have in your story file, the easier it will be to create unforgettable presentations because you'll have more options. You have the stories, you have it. You maybe just haven't learned how to mine it. And just by listening to this episode, listen to it a second time, a third time and get the book. Deliverunforgettablepresentations.com get the book. It's on Amazon. You can get the ebook version, but it will literally go in and hold your hand and give you the tools that you need. Please join us Next week we'll go into step number four. This is step number three. Structure this. Mark Brown, final thoughts.

My final thought is this. Perhaps you are going right now you're going with the make a point. Tell a story. Make a point. Or maybe you're going with tell him. We're going to tell him. Tell him what you told him. Sorry, Tell him what you told him. I'm so confused by this. And that works for you. Now we invite you to pick the next step. We mentioned next steps last episode. Take a step forward and see if you can use this process. Maybe for a short talk at first, but get accustomed to having a structured presentation with logical, organized flows. And we will guarantee you that when you use structure effectively, it'll shorten your learning curve, you'll get it done in less time and you'll be on your way to being unforgettable. See you next week.

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