Ep. 95 Do What Most Wont

Hey there, Marc Brown. Everyone wants to be unforgettable, but many people aren't willing to do what it takes. Most presenters feel they're good enough and they think, yeah, this is good. This is really good. I get good feedback. Good, good, good. Well, this is not the good presentations podcast, Mark. We need to talk about what most won't do that unforgettable presenters do do.

Let's do this, brother.

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 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, this is where we separate the men from the boys, the girls from the women, the lazy from the serious.

Well, you know, Darren, I know that it's very easy for us as speakers to feel we've got it down cold. We have done it for a while, especially if we have some experience and we know what we're doing. And there's always, there's always something more that we can learn. There's always something more that we can do. And we have discovered that there are certain traits that speakers who are successful have. There are certain habits that certain speakers will adhere to that become second nature to them, that we teach. But not everyone is willing to do them. And today we wanna share some simple ideas. Doing things that some people won't do that'll elevate your game and bring you from good to great to unforgettable.

Yeah, Mark, this is, let's just say, the tough love episode. Here you go, the tough love episode. We were gonn this painful progress, but we figured you might not click on it. So thank you for clicking on do what most won't, which is the truth. And they're one and the same. But most people aren't willing to put in the effort. And hey, that's a choice you can make the choice to do this or not do this. We're just telling you here's the truth from our decades of coaching and helping other people and what we do. So Mark, let's just dive right in because let's make this a brief episode because they're going to have to lick their wounds.

Well, maybe, Darren, the first point we want to share, I must say, this is meaningful to me personally. Quick context. Over the last several months, we have had to do several virtual presentations and many of the talks that I've done, particularly for groups that are nonprofit or maybe Toastmasters, I always ask them to make sure I get the master of the videotape. Sometimes as Toastmasters organizations and districts, they'll reserve a secret link, maybe on YouTube for the people in their district to watch and revisit the presentation. They'll send me my whole portion by videotape. I may or may not post it or post a portion of it, but I watch the videotape, assess myself, look at my own performance, appreciate the good, say, ooh, I could have done that differently. And even after 25 plus years of presenting, I see the value in watching my own videotape. So jumping right in. One of the first things that I know I do that many people won't is to watch video of myself presenting. I will confess, it is not always pretty, it is not always fun. And the mistake many people make is, yes, I'll record myself. I have somebody record me. I'll make sure I get the recording and you get the recording and it's great. But the key is watching the recording afterwards, getting it.

There's no pain in getting it.

Yeah, it's watching it, assessing yourself critically and honestly and being gutsy enough to have someone you trust, maybe your coach, watch it with you and evaluate step by step what you did. See where you have strengths, identify the weaknesses and then make a decision to act to upon those weaknesses. Darren?

Yeah, those painful moments when you watch it and you're like. Or you're kind of watching, you're covering your face, you know, I know you can't see me on the podcast if you're listening, but on YouTube you can. Like, you don't want to see it. And we get it, we get it. But watch it anyway. Watch it anyway. Mark, you probably remember the story of Jim Key, who, who came in second in 2001 in the world championship contest. And I had created a program called Speak Like a Champion. And he and I became great friends and he asked for, I gave it to him, I gave him a copy of it. And he heard that I did 22 practice speeches and I recorded myself every time. And so in 2002, Jim went and did the same thing. He recorded himself every time and came in second again. And in 2003, he recorded and listened to it.

Ah.

And won. So I'm just saying, you know, this is not a guaranteed result, but I guarantee you'll grow if you're willing to listen to it. It multiplies your time. If you sit there and listen to your own recordings, your own replays, even if it's audio, there's gonna be moments that you know you can fix. Like, absolutely, I can make that better. Eh, My delivery was horrible. I remember my old days of working at Bose Corporation. It was required in our job that they recorded our calls. You know, it's whenever you call into a bank or a store or somebody or customer service, you get that little message that they have to say, this is being recorded for quality assurance. Well, we're telling you, record your own video for quality assurance. Because I hated sitting, sitting with my boss, listening to my calls. And it made me better because I was like, I wouldn't want to buy from this guy. Like, it's obvious he's distracted, it's obvious he doesn't care. It's obviously he's pushing me or trying to sell me. But when you're in the moment of presenting, you're in the moment and you can't edit, you can't reflect while you're doing it. You'll have a moment or two, you're like, I could have said that better. But no way does it compare for you sitting down, listening or watching your own replays.

Yeah. And also, Darren, on many of those service calls, you'll say, this call is being recorded for quality assurance and training purposes. I've heard that so often. And training purposes. My mind says, oh, they're going to record the call to train somebody how to do it or how not to do it. But maybe the call is being recorded. So the individual on the call is being trained on what they do well and on where they need improvement. What we need to do firstly is when we watch our own video, we have to watch it critically through the eyes of our audience members. It is often difficult to divorce ourselves from the role of, well, I am the speaker in that video. Put yourself in the audience as if the speaker was someone else. Be honest enough, be open enough, be mature enough. Sure enough, we're going to step on toes today to say, listen, that was good, or that was not good enough. I can do better than that. Are you willing to critically assess your own performance if you get a recording where the audience audio is also included? Are you listening for audience reaction? Are they reacting appropriately? Are your opponent lines getting oohs and and aha? Is your humor getting laughter, chuckles and applause? Is the audience responding in the way you expect? Are you listening the whole recording to get the entire experience from the audience's chair, do you look at your face? Are your facial expressions congruent with the words that you say? Do you look at your movement? You have to watch the entire video, not just for your performance from a performance standpoint, but from an audience experience perspective as well.

And two huge positives to this as well. Number one, you. You're gonna capture some of your best content, that you were just connected with the audience, and you'll say some things better or different or you'll add an aspect, and then you'll think, I need to remember that. I'll need to write that down. You don't. If you've ever been to a comedy club and you heard a comedian say to the other comedians in the macaroon, hey, write that down for me. They actually mean it. Because something happens, something you're at one with the audience, and you said something you did in a way that you never said it before or just different, and you capture that. So I remember Mark one time I was on stage in my early days of standup, and I used to do a joke about stupid questions that I would get asked when I was running my Subway sandwich shop. And so I had this character, that woman. This woman would come in, and she would have this scowl on her face, and she would just be, like, looking over all the vegetables and everything there. But she really had an attitude. And I remember I was just caught up in the character once, and I said, this lady came in, this pickle sniffer, and the audience laughed. And I had never said that before. And when I went back and listened to the replay, I'm like, that was funny. I had never said pickle sniffer before. But just the one, the funny words, the way, you know, with the attitude like that was funny. So I was able to capture it so I could reproduce it. So there are some upsides to watching the replays. You find those golden moments. And then something I learned from one of my comedy mentors. I don't much talk about him, but I just had so many. But his name was Chance Langton, and he did cruise ship. He was on A and E comedy on the road. Just awesome guy. And sometimes I would drive him. I would go and pick him up and drive him to the gigs if I was opening to him. And one thing he would do is he would listen to his best set on the way to the event, because I believe it really does get you on track. You feel the pace. You're reminding yourself of that great audience. So it helps give you some confidence. And I just think that's a great, brilliant tip. So even if it's a clip, but if you have one of those favorite presentations where you are at one with the audience and you killed it and they loved you, listen to that on your way to your next one. Mark.

Yeah, one more positive. I can remember late last year I was redoing my demonstration video, my demo video, my promo video, my sizzle reel was a little over two minutes long. And just prepare for this. And you know, my videographer from Las Vegas who I gave the work to, and I had to go through reels and reels, clips and clips, entire keynotes I gave. I had one that I did in France, I had one I did in, you know, Denver, Colorado. I went to all of these different clips of all these different presentations. I had to watch myself in all of these presentations to eventually come up with enough useful and powerful clips that I could give to my videographer to put together this demo video which had. I also ran by my. One of my meeting planner friends who's going to be marketing with me, Jennifer. So she was involved in the process. But what it did for me was I got to look at and find my best material. I got to see where I could improve. And it was, aha. I have a list of, you know, video number one, 2703, 2715. I got a 13 second clip. Ah, that was good. How can I recreate that and use it someplace else? It's very educational. It's very inspirational when you find what works for you. It's also very educational when you see what you can improve. I have one keynote I looked at Darren. I said, that opening worked great for that demographic audience. I will never use it again for that demographic because it didn't work. It's educational. It'll teach you what works, it'll teach you what doesn't. And again, if you have the benefit of a live audience or if you're doing a presentation where you happen to have had your video virtually in gallery mode and you could see the reaction from people in the room, and I will confess sidebar. I'll often do a virtual presentation in gallery view so I can see the individuals who are there, I can respond to them, I can see them nod, I can see them laugh. I can see what happens that informs me that my audience is responding to what I'm saying. So I watch these videos and I look for the responses, I look for the reactions, and I think to myself, ah, that really worked. Hmm. I didn't think that would Be funny, but I can tell people are laughing. Perhaps I can tweak that and use it again. There is power in watching the video, but remember, you want to watch from the perspective not only of the presenter, but of the audience as well. And we often teach them different ways to watch the video. One, watch the video with the sound off and just see yourself, Your movement, your face, your gestures, your body language. If you fall on the floor, don't do it because Darren really did it. But you'll see how everything works. If you move too much, if you move too little, you get to see it. We say play it again, but this time don't watch. Listen for your inflection. How fast you go, how slow you go. Is the emotion congruent for the moment? Is the audience reacting or responding? You get to hear all of that as well. If you can do it fast forward, you can see how fast you move. There's so much you can learn by watching, re watching and listening to recordings of your presentation. It'll help you up your game. And the truth is, most presenters won't. We're going to ask you to do what most won't. And number one, begin by watching and listening to recordings of your own presentations. Darren?

Yeah, and I'll just wrap up this point, Mark, by saying, you know, when I'm on stage, especially early on, after I won the championship, I was passionate about helping people and I realized they had never really heard this concept or if they did, they didn't get it. So I was adamant about saying, look, here's the three habits of what you need to do if you want to become unforgettable or go from chump to champ or be world class. And one of them is record yourself. And when I would say that on stage, I would follow it up quickly by saying, I know what you're thinking. Oh, I don't want to record myself. I hate to listen. Oh, well, guess what? We had to listen. Why should you be so lucky? You don't have to. But seriously, if you want to be unforgettable, you need to listen to yourself. And if you won't listen to yourself, why should anyone else listen to you? Which leads us to number two, editing. You know, you're gonna get some ideas on how to edit, how to make your stories better. But what I learned from you, Mark, is if I don't write it down, I can't edit. You can't edit what you don't write down. Now, we're not saying gotta do word for word a 60 minute keynote. But your key stories, your opening and your closing, those should be word for word. Well, is there a better way to word it? And you gotta step back from the emotion of being on stage and look at, okay, how can I really make it better? One of the services I use is Rev.com. there's many out there that you could actually take a speech and get it transcribed and then go back and read it. And Mark, you know, I know what's coming. When I first did that, my first version of Ouch. Because I thought, I got this, you know, I'm a bullet point guy. And I'm like, oh, man.

Did I really say that?

Did I really say that, Mark? You know, I was like, I was animated, but I was like a train wreck. Like, I didn't really say anything of substance to my audience. So even though I was interesting to watch because I was like a flailing, you know, chicken with his head cut off, but at the same time, I wasn't saying anything. So the animation was being wasted. So when I sat back, I kind of put my tail between my legs and came back to my coaches. Yeah, you're right. I could say it better.

I won't go through the whole backstory about that, but I will tell you this. You may find yourself as you listen to this or watch this, you may be one of the most accomplished extemporaneous speakers on the planet. And I'll give you that. I'll applaud you for that. I'm not discounting the value of being spontaneous or extemporaneous. You could be the master of your Toastmasters Clubs, table topics, or your district grant. Again, wonderful. I applaud that and I appreciate that. However, when you know exactly what you are saying and why you are saying it, Darren said scripture, opening your key stories and your closing. When you know exactly what you're going to say and why you're going to say it, you can lead the audience down the path you want them to take. There is nothing wrong with being extemporaneous, but sometimes we may include dialogue or include words, sentences, descriptions that really do not drive the story forward. Enhance our understanding of a character or a circumstance, and you end up using really nice words, but they really don't serve a significant purpose in your presentation. Very often with my clients, I offer this thought. Review your script, look at this paragraph and break it down sentence by sentence, even character by character, and ask yourself this question. If you removed that sentence, if you removed that reference, would it harm your presentation? Think about it. If I took it Out. Would it hurt my speech? If the answer is yep, then clearly it stays in. But if it makes no difference to the impact to the setup, to the scene, to the characters emotion, to the situation, if it really makes has no impact, you can edit that out. What you're left with now is you have a tighter presentation, it's more compact, it flows more smoothly, and where you can. Why use a five syllable word when you can use one with one or two syllables that is equally impactful. I understand that there are times a wonderful word is just words like panache and adept and superfluous. And I am a self confessed word nerd. I love words. But for the sake of my audience, what is better, four monosyllabic words or eight highfalutin words that require Darren to go get his dictionary as he always does when I talk to him. I'm being slightly facetious, but I'm being very serious here. You have to think about the impact on your audience. Ask yourself, if I take out this reference, this character, this sentence, this paragraph, this imagery, will it harm my speech? If you honestly answer yourself no, it won't, then you can take it out. Be willing to do what most speakers won't. Because here's the thing, very often it stays in because we like it. But it's not about what we like. It's about what our audience needs. That's why you are there to serve them and give them what they need. Editing is important and editing will give you a tight, compact presentation that makes it that much more memorable. You can only do that if you start with your transcription. Darren.

Yeah, and I took my transcription of version 1.0 of OUCH. And the original. There's a section that we teach on using this that there's a section that was three paragraphs. And when I did just what you said, I brought it down to three sentences because it wasn't relevant. It was just blah, blah, blah and it wasn't getting to the point. We also have talked in the past about like foundational phrases. That is something that needs to be edited wordsmithed so strong because that's the one thing that's gonna put a handle on your message so they can carry it home and take it with them. Ten words or fewer. Gotta have some rhythm economy.

Yeah.

People love the skill set without mindset will leave your audience upset. Okay. That took Craig Valentine and I an hour and a half to sit down and work out to get the point across and get it to that memorable and that rhythm. And when I say that a Lot of people say, what was that again? Say that again. Skill set without mindset will leave your audience upset. Talking about the mindset that you bring to a presentation just before you take the stage. Well, that had to be crafted. That had to be edited. We were not winging it. We sat down strategically for an hour and a half to edit that, to make it right and make it memorable. So, Mark, we've got watching your video, we've got editing your speech now. This is the tough one.

Ooh, I'm braced for it. Here we go.

Deleting.

Wait, but, Darren, that's my favorite story. It's like, oh, it's awesome. I love this story. What do you mean, delete that? What are you talking about?

Yeah, killing your babies, killing those stories that you love. And it might not actually be killing them or deleting them completely. You're just deleting them from this speech because it won't serve. If you love it that much, go build another keynote around that message. You might use it somewhere else. You might use it for a specific audience. And we get that you love it, but it always gets me laughs. Mark, if you remember, in mine, I had this great line about the fun Suckers, people that suck the fun out of everything. And it was a line that it did make my point. In fact, it was really strong and it always did get laughs. However, at the end, when I asked people what did they remember from it? The Fun Suckers was so strong and so memorable, they left joking and laughing about the fun Suckers rather than the message I was there to deliver. So it broke my heart. But it wasn't best. I had to delete.

Click. Now, see, this lesson is so powerful. You and I may have elements of our presentation, and sometimes it could be the use of a prop or illustration that is so powerful, it'll dominate the presentation. It'll overtake the presentation, it'll overtake the message because it's so good. You could be an illusionist who uses magic that was so awesome. And if all they remember is your magic illusion, if all they remember is the prop you had on stage, if all they remember is a really funny line by a character in your story, but they can't tell you the message, perhaps that's not the right time or place to use that story, that prop, that illustration that you bit of illusion. You really have to ask yourself, what is the best way to serve my audience? And sometimes what you delete may be a portion of a story. It's part of a larger story. But maybe that portion of the story, as powerful as it may be, as impactful as it may be, is not the best portion of the story to include. I can recall 20 years ago when Darren and I were working together, I was coaching him on one of his speeches, and he had. One of his main story characters is Dr. Robert Goddard. And in the first iteration of his speech, Darren had don't chop down your cherry tree as title. Remember that title, Darren. Don't chop down your cherry tree. And the story of God going out to the territory and climbing up and the transformation. We talked about a shift in a previous episode of our podcast, and you had that. It's all part of the story. It was very intriguing, but at some point in the process, you decided you don't need that part of Dr. Goddard's story. As powerful as it was, it really wasn't driving your presentation forward, and you made the critical decision to take that part of the story out and leave the other part in. Help our audience understand why that deletion was important.

Well, it goes back to. We've talked about this before, craving feedback. What is the audience thinking? The most important part of a presentation is the thought process in the listener's mind. So if they're getting confused, when I drop the cherry tree word phrase, it actually would send the audience's brain off on a tangent, and they would think, George Washington. Because outside of the. It was fascinating, because outside of the United States, it wasn't an issue. But inside the United States, where we grew up, hearing the story of George Washington and his cherry tree, it created a tangent because it was such a unique story. It was a historical presidential figure, but at the same time, cherry tree. That's the only time we talk about it. But it was critical in a lot of our learning or history lessons along the way. Yet right now, when I hit cherry tree, boom. I was emotionally sending the audience off on a tangent, thus confusing them, thus diluting my effect. Thus, they didn't hear my next words because their brain went off on a tangent. George Washington. What does George Washington have to do with this? Oh, wasn't George Washington. It was Goddard. Okay, so whatever I said in those five or seven seconds, their brain heard, wa wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa wa wa ou never get it clear to everyone, but if it's not clear to most of them, it's your fault. Why? Because you're not listening to your own recording. You're not, and you're not willing to delete.

Yeah. And you know, Darren, quite honestly, that is what many speakers Are not willing to do. It's my favorite story, man. I am known for this story, dude. I'm going to leave that story out. Come on. People want to hear that story. Yes. There are times every audience may want to hear a particular story. I said earlier, your function is to serve the audience in the best way possible. And if you do, what Darren and I talk about for the last several years is build a story file. You will find you have a plethora, an abundance of stories that can be interchangeable at times for different presentations. The key is to determine which story is the best one for that presentation and that audience at that time based upon their need. And the deletion of your favorite story may lead to the insertion of a much more appropriate story or reference with which that audience will resonate much more significantly. That's the way you serve them. By deciding, I gotta delete my favorite to serve them with what will become their favorite, to remember my message, to apply the principles I teach, and to improve their condition. It all comes back to doing what other people want for the benefit of the audience. Darren mentioned earlier the time he took him and Craig to craft a foundational phrase. When we are willing to invest time now to create something that serves our audience, it will be memorable and unforgettable. So think about this. It's not a case of I've got to delete my favorite story. No, it's a case of what can I insert or include that will best serve the audience to meet their need and to fulfill my assignment for them.

You might love it, they might like it, but if it's not delivering your message, just save it for another time. Or maybe it could be used in a better way in the structure of that same speech. And maybe it could be tweaked and converted. So it's still a great story, but yet sets up your premise or reinforces your premise or proves your premise. So there is a time to delete, at least from that speech, because most won't. Most? Well, this is. But this is a story I'm known for. Okay. Is it related to your message?

Well, I can.

I can kind of take that as a no.

I can kind of finagle. I can finagle. That's the word. I can finagle it. I can. And maybe get in here and you try really hard to make a hexagonal peg fit into a square hole, because it's like, I'm gonna make it work. You can't force it. And Darren, all kidding aside, you and I are going through this right now too, as we're doing a book project and we're seeing the cutting room floor. I think of filmmaking and my son is a filmmaker. And I've learned, I've come to understand that, you know, in film they will film hours and hours and hours of footage, but significant amounts of film end up what they call the cutting room floor. Back in the old days, they would actually cut the physical film. It'll just fall to the floor at the end of a day. You see all this films lying on the floor that got cut. It was filmed, it looked great. And I understand that little known fact about me is a few years ago right here in Macon, Georgia, I don't even know how I did this, but I got email about the need for extras for films and you got to send a picture of yourself, the date and all that stuff. And I was selected to be an extra on a TV series being filmed in Macon, Georgia. I drove two hours north to Atlanta, got into wardrobe. They chose the clothes I would wear for the scenes I was going to be shooting. I drove back to Macon and a few couple weeks later I went downtown. Macon, Georgia early in the morning. I had my costume, I got dressed. I was gonna be an extra in this filming. And it had a different name for it at the time, but I was in the. And you couldn't tell anybody who was in the film in the series. Fine. Silence. Don't say a word. I was delivering flowers and I was doing all this thing and on the scene and I saw Louis Gossett Jr. He was right there. I saw Regina King. Wow. Had this wonderful car scene, car chase. I was outside watching the car go by and I was. It was great. They filmed the whole thing and then they released it on HBO several months later under the name the Watchmen. I say Regina King, Louis Cussett Jr. The Watchmen, EME Frankel Bell. And I can remember the scenes they were filming and I watched and I saw that I was cut from all what was released is on hbo. It didn't bother me. I had a fun day with people. It was cool. I had a really good time. But my. The scenes I was in were on the cutting room floor because it wasn't considered necessary for the film. In the same way we have so much material, so many stories, so many ideas, so many anecdotes. But to serve the audience well and to move the story forward, there will be times that we may find our best stories end up on the cutting room floor.

Darren and Hollywood even plans for that Sometimes they'll shoot two or three different endings to see with a focus group audience which one works better. So if Hollywood does it, why wouldn't we learn from them and adapt it for our situation? Mark, you know, I'm working on my script now. I have it at 120 and a half pages and I'm trying to get it down to 120 because that's the industry standard. I was told that some people will ignore it, it won't even read the script if they see it's too many pages, which seems ridiculous, but there's 30,000 scripts that come out every year. So somehow if you're not professional enough to follow the rules, if you're an unknown, look, the famous directors and writers, they can do whatever they want. And Hollywood, listen, if you're a wannabe, if you're just getting your way, foot in the door, you gotta at least follow the rules at the beginning until you prove yourself. So I've been struggling and Mark, I'm sitting there like I'm taking your dialogue and I'm like, how can I say that and save a line so everything goes up so the whole script gets a little tighter, gets a little tighter. So I'm literally feeling the pain of doing this right now. But I know it's what's best to get my script read. And for you delivering your presentations, it's what's best to serving your audience with the rock solid content. By the way, that's gonna get you rehired, that's gonna get you more sales in the back of the room, that's gonna get more people following you which will recommend you for other speeches. So it's the bottom line, the more you serve your audience, you've got to be willing to watch the recordings, you've got to be willing to edit and you've got to be willing to replace or delete when it's needed. Mark Brown, take us home.

Friends. Be willing to do what most won't and eventually you will become not only good, not only great. We believe you will be unforgettable. See you next week.

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