I think this is an idea I stole from friend and humorist Jon Schwartz (aka Vinni Verelli). He would tell his class of up and coming speakers how he would always voice-record his gigs and then listen to them on the way back home. He would especially listen for laughter because you can never remember what draws laughs and what doesn’t in the moment. You have to listen and learn later.

So, I came up with this slight modification.

I like to wake up very early and have “me time.” That usually means watching videos of homeless dogs rescued by the side of some road in Romania to writing about stuff. Any stuff.

I am sure it was after a presentation I made and the next morning I was writing something like this:

“Ten things I learned from speaking to the Solid Waste Management Association.” (This was a real gig. Ah, the life of a speaker.)

And I wrote my list. I only got to five. But when I forced myself to write all ten, I really got to some of the interesting stuff.

• Slide showing worker at landfill connects more than just landfill image. (people like seeing people they might work with)
• Making book giveaway for asking best question added energy and fun.
• Everyone loves their world even if it stinks like garbage.

The point is it was a debrief. I was writing down and burning into my memory details I would surely either not remember or maybe not have ever noticed.

This is a great way to learn effortlessly.

I encourage just about everyone I coach or speak to about presenting to try it. If you are a student of this speaking thing or you just simply want to get better at communicating, then do a quick debrief on the way home or in the next day or so after an event of any significance.

I have a bunch of journals with these lists in them. The truth is I never go back and review. I don’t have to. Just making and writing the list is enough to learn the point.

And here is an old school tip: Write them down longhand. Yikes, I know. But it works.

More profound, semi-profound and stolen ideas can be found here: https://ready2speak.com

Merry Christmas and all other seasonal celebrations,

Tom

Today, Two quick lessons of clicker abuse or rather lack of clicker abuse.

Example number 1. Joe (we are not using his real name to protect him from public ridicule) stepped up to the front of the room. He then fumbled with his laptop for about 5 minutes to get plugged in and to load his slides. Finally, he stepped away and began his talk.

Clickerless Joe stopped his presentation, walked over to his laptop and pressed the enter key to advance his next slide. If he only had a few slides it would have been bad enough.

But we were not so lucky. Joe had many slides and his interruptions were a major distraction. Come on Joe!

Henrietta, like-wise, did not invest in a clicker. When she arrived at the venue she found that her laptop had to be set up far away from where she would speak. She enlisted a helper to advance her slides whenever necessary using a very discrete hand signal. All worked well until her helper advanced too many too quickly and then it was a fun time watching as they both tried to get back on track.

Don’t be like Joe and Henrietta. Be prepared.

Buy a clicker, they are less than 20 bucks. Practice with it. Get to your location early. Test everything out.

And then hope the little nasties that live in every speaker’s laptop and PowerPoint program don’t sabotage your best efforts.

Because, if you are not watching, they will.

You can’t avoid all the bad stuff, but his guy will help you deal with most of it: https://ready2speak.com/course

Tom

Yesterday I rattled on about how a presenter can enhance their credibility by citing reliable and appropriate sources for the statements they make to their audiences. If done right, these references can show that you are not just blowing some smoke from your dorm room in the 70s but have actual research or expert knowledge behind your ideas.

My Toastmaster buddy and friend Sandy Pon quickly shot me this: “Idea for a sequel: How to cite many sources, i.e. what and how much to say for enough cred, in a speech without bogging it down, esp if you’re not using ppt.”

Sandy is a superstar research librarian and I assume she has to deal with technical people who are very demanding of established sources for any claims they may make as a speaker.

I have created presentations for this type of situation many times. There is always a need to give citations to sources. Often many, many citations.

My solution as with any presentation where you must show too much small detail – detail that will become a certain energy killer if spouted from the speaker — use handouts.

Handouts are a presenter’s safety valve.

Keep your oral presentation focused on your few powerful action items – the take-aways. Provide the major supporting details. But assign the minutia to a handout.

You will have satisfied both masters – the need to deliver a powerful message and the need to get into the weeds and prove you know your stuff.

Hope this helps.

Help could be heading your way: https://ready2speak.com/course

Tom

Warning to readers: Below is a fairly complex thought process that has really taxed my limited mental resources. But it is an important point and I will try to make as clear as possible.

There is a complex formula at play in just about every presentation that many of us ignore. And often at our peril. When we don’t address this formula, it activates that silent troll that sits in the back of our audience with his or her arms folded and whispers to themselves, “Oh yeah? Prove it.” Or they may even be loudly shouting to themselves, “bullnuggets!”

This formula involves a few elements:

• One. Your established credibility as an expert.
• Two. The assertions you will make in your presentation.
• Three. The resident skeptical attitude of this particular audience.

I have at least a partial solution for this, but first let me more carefully define this formula and the problem.

We’ll do this backward. Please follow…

Imagine an audience of engineers. Folks who deal with numbers and facts and things they can see and prove.

Now the speaker presents to them an idea or theory that is contrary to their normal thinking: “This doesn’t work the way you think. It works this way.”

Whoa there, expert speaker boy.

Their inner skeptic just popped up. Who are you to spout such heresy?

This is the spot where the credentials of the presenter may satisfy the crowd. If the presenter is a known expert with a history of exploring and understanding their world then his or her wild assertion will have credibility.

But if one of those elements is not satisfied – if the audience is too skeptical, if the assertion is too wild or if the expert is too unexpert, then everything falls apart and the audience flat out won’t believe.

So, the credibility of the presenter plus the wilder their assertions, matched against the skeptical tendencies of the audience equals how well the message is received.

(I am searching for a way to make this simple – I don’t know if this is doing it.)

Anyway, here is the result.

Unless you are Einstein, you can’t stand in front of the Harvard physics department and tell them that gravity is a hoax. That audience is filled with skeptics.

But this doesn’t just apply to scientists and engineers and other dyed in the wool skeptics.

Even if you are a local health food store owner presenting to a citizen’s group and suggesting they eat this or that healthy food because it will make their skin soft and smooth…

Even then skeptics lurk in the crowd who will say: “Oh yeah? Prove it.”

Here is a partial solution for dealing with all levels of skeptics: Show your proof.

Einstein may not have needed any, but even a respected scientist must cite legitimate studies in their presentation to back up their claims. He or she will probably cite many of them. Because, in their world, the skeptics in their audience will be constantly saying “Prove it.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the health food store owner may need to only cite one or two legitimate resources. But if they don’t, there will be doubts about the claims that were made.

Sooooo… after this rambling rant here are my three take-aways.

• One. If you are in the business of presenting new ideas to people be ready to prove your personal credentials to qualify yourself.
• Two. Take some time to research and understand the audience’s resident level of skepticism.
• Three. Bolster your claims with valid, believable proof from outside sources. Use as much or as little as necessary.

Then, maybe your insane idea about eating deep fried banana peels will be believed.

Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you. Maybe this guy knows… https://ready2speak.com

Tom

Two quick and fairly obvious observations about controlling the focus of your audience’s attention using PowerPoint.

The first. A while back I was coaching a speaker on his presentation slides. He had, for some reason, a slide showing a large historical marker. The kind that some poor taxpayers get to pay for and place in front of a courthouse to commemorate a long-lost city founder.

This slide had at least a hundred words on it, all of which were faithfully displayed.

I asked, “Are you going to read that to your audience?”

The answer “No. I just want them to see it.”

This now famous incident led to my much-quoted rule of PowerPoint:

IF YOU SHOW IT, THEY WILL TRY TO READ IT.

Said another way: If you put words on the screen, no matter how many, how small or how hard to read, your audience will dutifully try to read them — no matter what your intention.

And the result is they will not be paying attention to you.

So, the audience mind control tip is this: Keep as many words off the screen as possible. Unless your intention is to have them read a long historical plaque (then prepare for the coming naptime).

(Exception: If you are conducting a training event or workshop where long clips of text are necessary, then these word-filled slides may be required. But remember they will still have the same mind-numbing effect. Consider having a workbook or handout to help mitigate.)

Mind control tip number two.

Those who create PowerPoint sooner or later end up creating a list of related items on a single slide. These lists often use bullets or something else to indicate items in a list.

If you project your entire list at one time your audience will read ahead. You may be discussing item number two while they are thinking about the tasty morsel of content you are going to reveal in item number four.

Once again you have lost control of their minds. They are not paying attention to you.

The solution? A build.

A build is simply a series of similar looking slides where each new item on the list is added on a new slide. This results in the first slide having just the title and maybe the first item. Then the second has the title plus item one plus item two. And so on.

You can build this build using multiple slides or, if you feel adventurous, use the animation features in PowerPoint.

In either of these two scenarios above, if you do it right, you are in control of their minds. And you have not lost yours.

Kinda creepy, huh?

Control, we all want control. Control your next presentation here: https://ready2speak.com/course

Tom