The Entrepreneur's Guide To Public Speaking (Part 1) | Miss USA 2013, Erin Brady

Okay, so first and foremost, when you think of having to get up in front of— somebody lost Burt's Bees. Okay, that's okay. No, no, no, he can't have chapped lips. Okay, so when you think about giving a presentation, can you tell me like what word comes to mind? Like what emotion, what do you feel when you kind of know that you gotta get up in front of people? Yes. Sweaty. Sweaty. Ew, but yes. Yes? Adrenaline. Adrenaline, I like it. Excited. Excited. It's not always the case. A lot of people are like, I'm about to shit my pants. But yeah, no, it's great. Anyone else? Anxiety, yeah. So I think the hardest thing about getting up in front of people is you're your own worst enemy, because you're constantly saying to yourself, oh my God, I look weird, I don't know what I'm saying. Kind of the cool thing about Draper is you're selling yourself and you're selling your business. So to start off, confidence. The biggest difference between confidence and self-confidence is I don't think you can really teach self-confidence. Self-confidence is just something that you kind of gather over the years once you decide that you're good at something or that, you know, you really are great at something. But confident, being confident with something is knowing that you are the best at it. that no matter what anybody threw at you, any question that they had, you're gonna rock it because you're confident and you're excited to talk about whatever it is that you wanna talk about. And with public speaking, you know, it's something that's exciting, gives you a lot of adrenaline, but, you know, it's a way for you to kind of sell yourself, to sell your product, to sell your business. And it's something that I love to do. And I'm hoping that all of you, by the end of your journey here at Draper, will do the same. Because this is really just the very, very beginning phases of raising money, having to go out and really sell whatever it is that you are doing. Awesome. Okay, so first and foremost, being here in Draper, one thing that Tim always says to you is that you need passion. Because you don't want somebody to come up in front of the room and start off by saying, hey guys. My name is Erin and my business is Romeo in a Box. It's pretty cool. Can you give me some money? Like, that sucks. You don't wanna hear anybody, you don't wanna hear what they have to say. Versus somebody that comes in and says, hi everybody, my name is Erin Brady and my business is Romeo in a Box and let me tell you why everybody in this room needs it. You want somebody that just oozes excitement. Anything that they're about to say to you, you wanna hear more. You wanna go out for coffee, you just wanna hear them because they light up the room and they're excited about whatever it is that they're about to sell you. And one thing that I learned while I was here is it really isn't about the idea necessarily, it's about the person. So if I can drill one thing into your head before you leave here tonight, it's about getting excited and getting up there and really just rocking out whatever it is that you're going to sell them. Because you have 2 minutes and they wanna know why should they give you the amount of money that you're looking for. Secondly, you need to be prepared. Obviously you've been here for 5 weeks almost, and that's what you've been doing. You're trying to get prepared and get excited about getting up in front of everybody, but I really can't tell you enough how important it is to be prepared. You have to know everything that there possibly could be about your business, about your idea, because inevitably somebody's going to ask you a question and you don't wanna ever be caught off guard, because the second you show any bit of vulnerability or that you don't know what you're talking about, they're— They're gonna see it. that's it, like done deal. They don't wanna hear about anything else you have to say. And you also have to know your audience. So obviously, I know tonight my audience is a bunch of people that just came back from dinner that are like, who is this crazy chick with a microphone? And that's okay. But next week, you're gonna get up in front of people that have a lot of money that are anxious to hear what you have to say. And as long as you're aware of that and you know that whatever it is that you're trying to sell, you're selling to people that have the money and have the resources and wanna help you. So knowing your audience, Knowing what they're looking for, you kind of already have to go in there thinking like, what kind of questions would they want to ask me? What is it exactly that I want out of them? And that's really, really, really, really important. Okay, practice. I know Tim mentioned this this morning, but practice, practice, practice. The difference between practice and rehearsing is practice is something where you're— it's okay to make mistakes. You're looking for feedback. So if you are practicing in front of your friends or practicing in front of your roommates, You're not finished. So you're looking for somebody to give you feedback. You want to hear, like, okay, do I sound nervous? Does this make sense? Am I getting the point across? That's the great thing about practicing. So over the course of the next week, whether it's in the Great Room or it's in the Egg Room or it's in your room in front of the mirror, you just want to practice so much so that there are no more errors or questions or anything that you want to change. It's, you know, you just want to continue and continue and continue to practice. And once you're done practicing, it's all about rehearsing. So the difference between practicing and rehearsing is rehearsing is your final product. This is exactly what you're going to say more or less on the day that you're gonna pitch. And one thing that I've learned is you don't wanna rehearse so much that if something were to happen, for instance, if the mic was to go out and nobody can hear you anymore, you wanna be able to, be able to pick right up because When you're rehearsing, you don't want to sound rehearsed. You want to have it in your head almost like a timeline, saying, okay, this is my hook, this is what I'm talking about, but you don't ever want to be thrown off. So whether you're rehearsing in front of 15 of your classmates— for me, it made me a little nervous, so I would stand in front of the mirror with my hairbrush, and then that way I could hear my tone of voice. I could say, okay, this sounds good, this kind of sounds weird, I'm talking too fast, I'm using too many hand motions. You just want to make sure that you are comfortable with what you're saying, but not so much so that you sound like a robot, because that also is kind of a turn-off. Okay. So with any presentation, not just a pitch, but any presentation, you want to start strong. And what they say is the first 2 to 3 minutes of your presentation is really the hook. Either you're getting people interested and excited or you're not. Luckily for you, Your pitch is 2 minutes. So if you can't nail 2 minutes, you've already lost them because that really is the whole key to a great presentation is starting out strong. And so if in your head you think, okay, what's 2 minutes? 2 minutes is nothing. When you hear that buzzer go off, you're like, oh my God, that's 2 minutes? 2 minutes goes by so quickly and you wanna make sure that you've articulated everything that you've wanted to let them know about because you're trying to sell yourself and sell your business.