Public Speaking Question Time - Mini Episode

Speaking with TJ Walker, dissecting the communication skills and practices of world class leaders.

Welcome to this mini episode today where I will be taking questions and by the way, I'm always happy to take your questions on the program. All you have to do is email me tjediatrainingworldwide.com or you can post them on any of the social media outlets where you are either listening to or watching the program. This one comes in from a client of mine in Budapest. Says T.J. i have to give two speeches in October. One of them will be a keynote address. What would be your advice for that kind of presentation? I have no details about the second event. Well, my advice for any presentation is to always start at the beginning. And that is what is your goal of the presentation? What is, is it you want the audience to do after hearing you? It can't simply be I want them to know everything about what I'm doing or I just want to give them an update on what I'm doing. That's too general, vague, fuzzy. And if you go into a presentation with that attitude, it's likely to be a boring data dump. Once you've figured out exactly what it is you want the audience to do, then you've got to ask yourself what is going to motivate your audience to do what you want them to do. And that means you've got a brainstorm on every possible message that might work, that might resonate. And then you've got to narrow it down to your top five messages depending on how much time, what you have in your presentation, your keynote. I would then give at least one, one personal story to illustrate each message point. Very key. If you don't have time, if you don't have a lot of time, then don't reduce the number of stories, reduce the number of messages. You only have eight minutes to give a speech. You're much better off focusing on one idea and really fleshing it out with a great story that's personalized. If you're going to use images, use one image that really makes that one idea, that one message of yours come alive. Now the second part of the question from Budapest is, did you have no details about the second event where I'm asked to speak? What do I do? Well, you've got to find out more information. To simply have a date on your calendar doesn't give us much. You need to talk to the organizers, find out what is the conference about? Why are people thinking they're coming to hear you? Who will be in their audience? What are their concerns. So figure out what are the concerns of the organization putting on the event. What are the goals of the organizer? Ask the person, why have they invited you to speak? We can assume why they do based on your title, your position in your organization, but it's never good to assume. If you can just ask the question, then find out more about who the audience is. You've got to factor in what do the organizers want? What's their agenda? What does the audience want? What's their agenda? And what is your agenda? Ultimately? What is it you want the audience to do at this event? And sometimes it could be just to be more aware of what you are and give you some sort of general political support. Sometimes it's highly specific. You want to raise money from them or you want them to invest in you. It could be highly specific, but it doesn't have to be. So find out more about the organization, the event, the audience. Really figure out what you want and then narrow it down to the top messages that will help you motivate the audience to do what you want. And then of course, the advice for this speech, both of them and all speeches, practice on video until you love what you see. I've never had anyone tell me they did that and anything bad happened from it. Now, if you try to memorize and you forget a word, sure, that's a problem. Please note, I'm not recommending that you memorize. I'm recommending that you practice saying your speech out loud on video multiple times until you're happy with how you look and sound. Do that and you will be in great shape. Thanks for the questions. Again, if you have questions or comments or disagreements with anything I say, a lot of what I say is mainstream advice, but I certainly have some advice that is out of the mainstream. For example, I recommend that if you're going to use PowerPoint, use lots and lots and lots of text that you email or hand out to people, but do not project a single word of text on a slide. When you're in the same room with people and there's a big projection screen, that's different advice for most people. If you disagree with me, that's okay. We can have a friendly, thoughtful, respectful debate. Most advice is less text, fewer words. I don't agree with that at all. I think you should use exclusively images, not text, on any slide you are projecting. If you want to email handout, put in a PDF, put in a book, use all the text you want. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for tuning into this mini episode. As mentioned earlier in the week, we'll be back to regular programming next week when I'm back in the country. Thanks.

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