Claude was the tour guide when my wife and I visited Montreal many years ago on our honeymoon.

He was sharply dressed, overly polite, humorous in a self-depreciating sort of way and he showed us all the good stuff.

We loved Claude.

Our little bus was filled with people from various parts of the globe. Claude took us to all the highlights of his wonderful city plus a few curious and quirky out-of-the-way places that only a local would know. And he kept us away from the spots that were a waste of our time or perhaps not the best places to be in.

He regaled us with stories and insider details that enlarged our understanding and appreciation for his beautiful city and country.

We all got a true feeling for what it was like to be in Montreal without spending days and days of our time studying all the minute details.

This is the perfect metaphor for a presenter.

Show them the highlights and avoid the mundane details. Most audiences don’t need to spend too much time exploring the weeds. They want to walk away with an appreciation of your world and perhaps a nugget of truth they can apply to theirs.

When speakers assume the role of the trusted tour guide, they are setting their listeners up for a rich and rewarding experience.

If you are ready to get on the bus, your tour of better presenting skills can start here: https://ready2speak.com/coaching

Tom

Yesterday was my day to work with experts who speak. There were a few at various venues who had test speeches or actual presentations that they were in various stages of preparing.

And I saw it again. And again. And again.

(Full disclosure – I have done it myself again and again)

Too much information.

This is one of my recurring rants. So here we go again.

Today I want to say why this TMI dragon is so bad and must be slain. But only if…

• You want to be effective at not boring or confusing the heck out of your audience.
• You want to not be that out-of-breath, 60-minutes-of-droning-on-and-on type of speaker who wonders if you have given anything of value to your audience.
• You ever want to sell or influence anyone.

Too much information poisons your entire speech.

The first reason is the simple fact that a one-to-many presentation is the most inefficient way of delivering details and facts.

It is, however, the most powerful way of delivering emotions and deep feelings. We all should know by now that feelings are what drives actions (and sales, if you are interested in that sort of thing). Facts don’t.

So, we relentlessly load up our PowerPoint canon with a hundred facts and features and pummel our hapless listeners. They might have gotten one or two – but twenty?

So that right there ruins the whole deal. We may have delivered a dozen facts and figures but have failed to connect with their feelings or needs.

But wait…there is more (and it’s all bad).

When a presenter knows that he or she has a lot of information to spray on their audience they rush. Big time.

A thousand words a minute. No breaths. No pauses. There is a switch that goes off in the speaker’s mind that kicks them into high gear and turns them into a speed talker. There is a nagging voice that says to them: time is short, you have a lot to cover, so let’s get moving here.

You audience, if they are even trying to follow along, can’t catch up. They are still processing point 23 and you are on 32. All that information is lost. And they are lost. Most people will just check out or superficially listen for anything that will sound slightly interesting.

And finally, the worst thing about too much information and rushing — it makes you look amateurish and worse — not confident.

Great speakers turn the flood of information about their topics into crisp little bite-sized take-aways. Things that this particular audience can actually use – maybe even today.

That simple act of slowing down and using pauses exudes confidence and expertise. Those great speakers are now seen as the true gurus of their material.

So, as the polite officer in Taliaferro County asked when I rolled down my window, “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”

Slow down. Enjoy the ride. Your audience will think you are pretty smart.

You want smart. We all want smart. Try this… https://ready2speak.com/coaching

Tom

Do you have restless speaker syndrome?

Here is a great tip from my wise coach and mentor Jim Dawson. He and I were in a class watching a newbie presenter pace back and forth during their delivery. A nervous but very distracting habit. Even experienced speakers can fall into this unconscious pacing.

Jim suggested that they should try practicing while standing and lightly pushed against the back of a stationary chair placed in the center of their practice space.

They then would begin to get used to the feel of not moving. The stand and deliver strategy.

There are plenty of reasons to move about your space when presenting. These movements can add drama and dynamics but should be done with intention as a supplement to your words.

Standing can be an acceptable substitute especially if the only other option is wearing a path in the carpet as you anxiously pace back and forth.

If that is your problem – get a chair and give it a try as your practice.

Back in my graphic designer days, I always liked being the hero. I would walk into a client meeting and solve all the printing and design  projects they were struggling with.

The truth is 99% of business people are not visually oriented. But since I had been doing this since the dinosaurs invented the printing press, it was, as they say, like rolling off a log. Easy-peasy.

But I was missing the bigger deal.

The rather brilliant Donald Miller, founder and chief guru at StoryBrand, likes to tell folks to avoid being the clueless but brave Luke Skywalker (as I was attempting) and instead become the wise Yoda to your clients.

This is his advice for positioning your marketing message to the world. It makes a lot of sense.

Let the clients be the hero. Let them slay their particular dragons and conquer Mount Doom. (I know I am mixing up a lot of metaphors here.)

When you are the Yoda you are giving them a nugget of hard won wisdom that will help them solve THEIR OWN PROBLEMS.

It is a very subtle switch, but it places you at the top of the heap of valuable trusted advisors. You have now become indispensable.

Where is all this going?

Well, this makes a lot of sense for speakers (both pro and serious business speakers) as well.

Now that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t walk to the front of whatever room you are in and establish yourself as the hero. This is a very valid technique.

You can be the one who swoops in and rescues everyone from their sad problems. This is a great position to be in. You can advance your career or business or bank account accordingly.

But as the Yoda, the speaker who gives your audience that little jewel of your brilliance that they can use to solve their problem, you become a super-duper hero. The guide who can give them the tools so that they can be the hero.

Zig is famously quoted as saying “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.”

Sounds like Zig wants us to like Yoda be.

Good Yoda advice clicking here you will get (without the confusing word play): https://ready2speak.com/coaching

Tom

I am binge watching/listening/reading this certain marketing guru. After a few listens I caught this interesting little tactic he uses. I am sure at first it was intentional but after his years of delivering his content in various ways it sounds almost unconscious. And it is so simple.

So, “let me give you an example.”

Did you catch it? He would make a point about his work – a suggestion or a principle or an observation and he would immediately follow it with the words: “Let me give you an example” or some variation. Then he would give an example.

So simple.

By the way, substitute the word “story” for the word “example” in the previous statement and you can see how cool this little technique is.

His phrase “let me give you an example” was a tiny segue into a story that would demonstrate and humanize his point.

When you think of quick stories in this way you can remove a lot of the angst that comes with creating that perfect story – just give an example.

You don’t need a hero or an antagonist or a story arch or a journey or a moral. Just tell us a quick story of someone or some situation you know that demonstrates the principle. We all know those right?

Here is another example. (too obvious?)

At a recent NSA Georgia meeting (that’s the Georgia chapter of the National Speakers Association) I heard a superstar A-list speaker use a similar technique in her presentation.

She was walking her audience through a step-by-step worksheet. Each component had a specific set of instructions for the audience to fill in as they went along.

As she listed each instruction, she would pause and immediately say “Let me give you an example”. She would then tell us how the fictitious person she was using to demonstrate her idea would fill out this form.

It turned a vague idea of how we should complete the task into a specific (and human) illustration we could easily follow.

Now, I could give you all the same blah, blah, blah you hear from me and everyone else about the power of stories.

You know all that stuff.

But if you are like most presenters, you struggle trying to find and polish those little nuggets. You can build fuller stories later when you become more adapt, but for now, this is a terrific starting strategy for including simple stories in your presentations.

Need fresh stories for your latest offering? I have shelves full of crisp, tasty stories over at Ready2Speak Street. https://ready2speak.com/coaching

Tom

P.S. Did you also notice that when you read the phrase “Let me give you an example” in my rant above you maybe leaned in a bit and started anticipating the story to come? Another great benefit of not only this technique but of using stories in general.