Ep 69 What is the Best Way to Use Handouts in a Presentation Public Speaking March 9 16

So what is the best way to use a handout when giving a presentation or speech?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Folks, the world can be a more and more technologically sophisticated place. Twitter, tweets, cell phones, smartphones. I'm in favor of all that. I use all that. But you know what? There is nothing that is really better in certain moments than a good old fashioned piece of paper handout. When speaking to an audience, I want to give you some tips because I'm often asked, tj, what's the best way to use handouts? Here's how. I personally like to use handouts in an ideal way when I'm with a relatively small group. If I'm doing a training, say for 30 people or fewer, I'll often give a presentation on how to tell a story. And I may have slides and video clips on. Okay, you need a setting, you need a problem. You need to introduce a character. You need a dialogue, you need emotion. You need some resolution. I'll spend 10 minutes or so walking through all the elements of a story. Then when I'm done, I'll hand out a single sheet of paper. And this is not for those of you watching on video, this is not that paper. But I'll hand out a single sheet of paper to everyone there that has the text that goes over those half a dozen elements that you need for a story. So it really reinforces everything I just said in the last 10 minutes. It's in text, which is fine because they can read it. I'm shutting my mouth and letting them read it. I then physically wait until people's heads have come back up and they give me eye contact again. So I'm not talking over them and asking them to read at the same time. So I'm already explaining the concepts and what took me 10 minutes to cover, and maybe half a dozen slides or video clips is now condensed and summarized on a single sheet of paper, which they can take home, study, have a reference point, throw away, make a paper airplane, it doesn't really matter, although I prefer that people use it as a reference, but it's just another tool. Now, the reason I believe that's effective is because I'm not overloading them. I'm not asking them to make a judgment between listening to me, watching a screen or reading. I'm only letting them have one thing to do with that particular moment. I give them the sheet and it's there for them to read. There's no Distractions. People don't really like to read when someone else is talking to them, when there's all sorts of other stuff on a screen. So that is what I believe is the most effective way to use a handout, is a great way of summarizing all the important points you just talked about and when you give it to someone for there to be no other distractions. Now let's talk about the unfortunate real world, how most people use handouts. What they do is they've created a one size fits all PowerPoint slide. PowerPoint deck. They've printed out the deck, the speaker stands up, is about to go through the deck, slide by slide. But they've also handed that out to the audience. And so the audience is looking at the deck, going through, trying to figure out where you are. They are. Maybe they're reading ahead because it's interesting, maybe they're confused by something. But now you're forcing the audience to do something that is against what most people want. You're forcing them to make a decision. You're forcing them to multitask. Should they try to read and listen to you at the same time? Or should they ignore what you're saying in order to read? Or should they ignore what you want them to read and just listen to you? Why put people through all that? I'm a big believer that you should just ask your audience to do one thing at a time. You want them to read, close your mouth, you want them to listen to you, don't give them anything to read. So I am not a fan of giving people your whole deck and putting it in front of them. Now, when you have a motivated audience and they are very interested in what you're talking about, and you do have their email addresses, but by all means, send them your handouts if you want to call them handouts. Although if you're emailing it, it's actually an email document. So, for example, when I'm doing a day of presentation training or a day of media training, anyone I work with, I'm emailing them two full books on public speaking training or two separate books on media training. And I'm giving them online courses and videos, and I email all that to them in advance, but I've never yet started a day of presentation training, and the person pulls out the printed version of the presentation book and starts reading it and looking up and down when I'm speaking, trying to figure out where is he in chapter one. It's a different medium, it was a different time frame. And that's why it's effective because those who want to read in advance, absorb, learn, can. Those who don't want to, don't have to. Maybe they want to after the speech or training session. That's their right. So that's how I think the best way is to use handouts. Now, if it's a much larger group, if it's 50, 100 people, it becomes unwieldy. It takes too much time to pass it out in the middle of your presentation because it just physically takes too long. What some people do, I've seen Anthony Robbins do this and I've seen others. It can occasionally work, is to give someone a workbook and then have blanks in it so that you really can't go too far ahead. It just doesn't make sense. And then the speaker, presenter, trainer can talk about things, ask questions and ask you to write your own reflective answers in the workbook. That can occasionally work. You have to make sure it doesn't come across as too gimmicky because if it seems too manipulative and just getting you to write things like I want more money and more happiness, it's not particularly seen as insightful or useful. But those are some of my thoughts on how to use handouts. By all means, use them. Don't feel limited to just the traditional 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper. One handout. I give all of my clients. If it's media training, I give them my business card. The back of the business card has 10 quick tips on what to do before you go into a media interview or a TV interview. If it's a public speaking course, I give people my business card, but the back of that has 10 quick tips on how to prepare for PowerPoint speech. So it is a handout, it is text based, it is information, and it's yet another way for me to reach the audience and leave an impression. But it doesn't compete with what I'm saying or any part of the training. It's another tool to hit people another way. That's really what your focus should be is always looking for new opportunities to educate, inform, connect with your audience so they understand and remember your messages.

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Timing is critically important. As a speaker, you can give the best speech in the world, but if everyone was expecting to stop exactly at 5 because people have airplanes to catch, dinner reservations to get to, shows to get to, and you're still talking at 5:45. Guess what? They are going to hate you. And here's the problem for a lot of people, most of us, myself included, once we're up and speaking, even if you're not aware of being nervous sometimes your perception of time changes. Now, this is especially relevant to me right now because just a few minutes ago I taped yesterday's show. Now, what I try to do with all of my shows is make them 15 to 20 minutes long. I've just determined that's a good comfortable length. I don't think I've had any less than 15, nothing over about 21 minutes. The way I'm able to get roughly that is I have a big timer. For those of you listening on the audio podcast, I have a roughly three and a half inch by three and a half inch square timer with big digital imprint. So when I start the show, hit a big start button. So for example, I can see right now I am roughly 9 minutes and 46 seconds into the show. Although your time counter will be a little different because I start the program first. Then when the opening credits are coming in, I hit the button to start it because it makes a little beeping sound. And I don't want you to hear that as the first thing when I'm starting in the show that you saw or heard yesterday, but that I just finished a few seconds ago, I forgot to hit the start button and I lost track of time. And my big fear was that I would be too short. I don't want to do a 10 minute show because I want any outsider in network, anyone else looking at sponsors, to basically see, okay, here's a consistent progress product of a show that's 15 to 22 minutes long. So I was afraid of being too short. Well, if any of you listened to yesterday's show or if you went to the end, you know, it was not a short show I finished. I thought, oh, I hope I got to at least 15 minutes. I looked down, it was 31 minutes long of me talking non stop. Now, the lesson there is not just that I have a big mouth. The lesson there is don't try to go by your gut. Don't try to guess. What I do traditionally, back before I had a smartwatch, is I just take my regular wristwatch off and I would put it on a lectern or a table where I'm speaking so I can look at it. Now what I do is I try to use some form of a timer so I can see it. Because sometimes you're feeling nervous time can slow down. Sometimes you're in such a groove, you're having such a great time, you're having so much fun, that boom, 45 minutes went by and you think it's 20 minutes. There is a danger that you're going to go on too long, so don't let that happen to you. So my recommendation, whether you're speaking for an audio podcast, a video podcast, a speech, a presentation, a talk, a boardroom presentation, have your cell phone out with a timer, have a watch, have some other digital timer, make sure your vision is clear so you can see a clock on the wall. But don't just rely on your gut when it comes to how well you've done instead of try to actually have some confirmation by using a clock of some sort. It just makes life a lot easier now. It's not the end of the world that my podcast went almost twice as long as normal in 31 minutes yesterday. Because anyone who didn't want to listen that long could stop at any point and go to have breakfast or lunch or dinner or go to their office. There's no real damage, but it's not the ideal thing. I'd like to be in control. I want you to be in control of not only how you speak, the substance of what you're saying, how you remembered, but even how long you speak too. It's all a part of the process.

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Question came in from one of my regular viewers and listeners. I touched on this briefly on a couple of other episodes, so I don't want to go into great length. The question is, is Ted Cruz a great public speaker? Now, it's always difficult talking about politicians because if people don't like that person's political values and policies, then if you say something good about that person's speaking abilities, they think you automatically endorse the speaking abilities. Very few people can really differentiate between speaking skills and the political substance. And I might not be the greatest speaker in the entire world, but I'm very good at differentiating what I like personally in the politics of someone and their speaking skills. So, for example, in the case of Ted Cruz, I do think that he's a great speaker. I remember the first time I saw him speak at the 2012 Republican convention. My jaw dropped. I thought, oh my God, this guy's going to be President. He's definitely running for President. He is far and away the best speaker I've seen at the 2012 Republican convention and I did videos on that subject. And of course people wrote to me that I was an idiot because Ted Cruz was ineligible because he was born in Canada. That was the prevailing opinion at the time. But Ted Cruz is a good speaker. He's forceful, he's confident, he pauses just the right way. Now there are many things he does that can strike some people as off putting. He can seem arrogant, nasty, self righteous. There are certain tonal things that he does that do rub some people the wrong way. But I do want to stress if you're looking for a good role model of a speaker, pick people all across the political spectrum and learn from them. Pick people all across the spectrum of TV preachers for that matter. And Ted Cruz, I do believe, is someone you can learn from. Interesting tidbit about him. In college he apparently had a gambling debt. He worked off his debt by giving public speaking training and classes to his fellow classmates. So he is someone who's had a lifelong interest in love in public speaking. Served him well. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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