What Are Speaking Points? - EP:085

Speaking points are obviously the points that you make while speaking, while making a presentation or a pitch, but what are they really and why are they so important? And most critically of all, how do you find the ones that will be most powerful for you, your presentation, or your pitch? I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com and that's exactly what we're talking about this week on 5 Find the Red Thread. If you're a fan, please like and subscribe. At their simplest, speaking points are just those ideas, concepts, facts, figures that you want to make sure the audience walks away with. That's why they're so important because they're the core of what you're trying to communicate. Having them in advance does a couple big things for you. First is that make sure that you have greater clarity about what you're trying to say. That means that your points are going to be sharper. That means that you've got the better support for them. It also likely means that you're not fumbling for the words and the language that capture them most cleanly. Now, the benefit of that, of having thought about them ahead of time, also has this extra free prize inside. In that you can now start to measure the effectiveness of your communications. If you knew that you wanted to get these 3 points across and the audience afterwards ends up talking, reading, tweeting about those 3 things, then you know those are the points that landed. So, how do we get there? Let's first start with how many should we have? And at that point, we know that we need to have one big idea, or at least I'm gonna argue that you need to have one big thing that you're trying to get across. It is essentially the red thread of your communication. And there's two formats that that one big idea can take. One is a definition where you're trying to establish that X is the new Y or X is Y. Just this is that thing. For instance, speaking is content's next frontier. That was a talk I gave a couple years ago. Now it can also take the form of cause and effect. X causes Y, or Y causes X, or X and Y are related in a way that we weren't aware of before. So for instance, Amy Cuddy's TED Talk that your body language may shape who you are, your body language may be able to help you overcome imposter syndrome, is that unexpected XY relationship. This is how these two things are connected that cause each other that we hadn't thought about before. So we want to make sure that we have that one big idea because that's the thing we really want people to walk away with and understand because that's the thing that will lead to that change in thinking or behavior. But how do we get there? Well, that's where the Red Thread comes in because we need to understand what it is that people are looking for that our speaking points will help them get. If that sounds a lot like a goal statement to you, you're right. And that brings us to the big problem that most people run into when they're putting speaking points together. They focus on what they want to get across and not what the audience finds important. So we take what our importance is and it overweighs, it outweighs what the audience finds important. But importance is in the eye, in the ear of the beholder. The audience decides moment by moment whether or not what you're saying is important to them. That's why it's so important for us to frame what's important to us through their eyes. That's why we always start with that question of the goal. What are they already looking for that we can help them get? The goal doesn't tend to be one of the main supporting speaking points, but it does help to anchor why you're talking to people in the first place. If you're trying to talk to people about making sure that their brand stands out in the marketplace or that they get content that converts, it gets them to start listening, but it may not be your main supporting speaking point. The next piece of the Red Thread though, the problem, often is a main speaking point because that's the thing that people haven't been really looking at in the pursuit of that goal. Remember, the problem is a problem of perspective. It's a combination of what the people you're talking to are seeing and what you see in the same situation. So if we go back to this idea of speaking is the content's last or next frontier, We could say, well, that audience who wants their content to convert, they want their business to stand out in the marketplace, is paying attention to how do we get the most effective content out there. But they may be undervaluing the role that spoken content plays in that, both video and live. Now, this leads us to the next big speaking point whenever we're trying to make, which is the truth, the idea that makes that problem impossible to ignore. So, I would want to make sure if I'm bringing out that message that speaking is content's next frontier that I support and talk about this point of how spoken content is able to communicate much, much more about you and your brand than written content ever will. So, that's going to give me a whole group of things to start to talk about to make sure that people understand why that first big speaking point, the problem, is such a problem. But if we set it up well, that truth should also explain that big change that we want people to make and the conclusion that we're drawing. That change is the explanation, that final explanation of that big message that we're trying to get across. So, if you want to get your business to stand out in the marketplace and you value content's role in it, the goal, and you've been looking at content and its effectiveness but not necessarily including spoken word content as part of that, And you now understand and agree that spoken word content can communicate much, much, much more about your message and your brand than written content ever can or will, then that means— change— that we need to make sure that we're including a strategic focus on speaking, on live content as part of our content strategy. That's that third major speaking point. What do you want people to do with that information? And in the case of speaking points, the actions that you normally think of as part of your Red Thread are sub-speaking points for that change. So, when you're thinking about speaking points, what you're trying to find are those pieces: the goal, the problem, the truth, the change, and the actions. You're gonna group them into 3 sub-speaking points. What's the problem? Why is it important? That's gonna be goal and problem together. You're gonna be talking about the truth that makes it all such a problem and that opens the opportunity for the change. All your supporting information goes around that speaking point. And then the last one is what to do with that information, the change and the actions. Altogether, they should add up to that one big idea that you're trying to get across. When you have those pieces, that overarching red thread of your message and its pieces, particularly the problem, the truth, and the change, you will be clear, confident, strong, and convincing every time. You go out there to speak. That's this week's episode of Find the Red Thread. I'm Tamsen Webster, your host of TamsenWebster.com. I do workshops and trainings with organizations and, and for individuals on how to present spoken content in its most powerful way. If you're interested in that, take a look at TamsenWebster.com/consulting and TamsenWebster.com/speaking. If you're a fan of this information or me, will you do me a favor and like and subscribe? Hoping so, and I hope to speak to you next week.