(Svanholmen, Stockholm, Sweden)

“What do you speak on?”  is probably the most common question professional speakers ask each other.

It’s understandable, we want to find out what the other speaker’s expertise is.

But personally I like this question better: What is your next speech going to be on?

Because I find it more interesting to learn what a speaker is doing research on at the moment, which things has triggered the speakers thoughts recently in such a way that he (or she) feels compelled to write a new speech about it. I want to know what the speaker thinks that others should be thinking soon.

It’s more interesting to find out where someone is going than to find out where he (or she) is at. At least it is better at triggering my imagination.

Today I sat down with fellow speaker, Magnus Lindkvist. Magnus is a truly global speaker who has been able to develop an impressive speaking career over the last 15+ years that has taken him literally all over the world to speak.

But today he was not travelling the world, but sat with me on my island and discussed future speeches.

 

As a speaker we normally have a “theme” that we talk on. The subject that we are “thought leaders” on.

Magnus is a “trendspotting futurologist”, I am “the global conference speaker”, and the topics I speak on are “Business Creativity”, “Change” and “Global Mindset”.

Over the years I have developed new speeches based on the topics that I have come to understand that my clients need to hear.

(A new speech should be a combination of a) Something you want to learn more about, 2) Something you are already an expert on 3) something clients are willing and interested to hear more about.)

I started speaking 20+ years ago and talked about “Internet and Marketing” at a time when most business leaders did not even know what the Internet was about.

Then in 1998 I wrote a book about “internet and customer service” and turned that into a speech at a time when companies still thought that the Internet was just a marketing channel.

Then I wrote a series of books, and a speech, on Business Creativity when I realised that one big advantage that the Internet had brought with it was the ability to make companies look at their business model in a new way, but that they needed more creativity in order to keep questioning what they were doing and why.

In 2005 I moved to China and started work on a book that would become “The Developing World” about what I learnt about creativity in developing countries – after I had travelled to more than 20 developing countries and met a series of very creative people there.

And in my latest book “One World. One Company.” I studied the concept of Truly Global Companies which is now one of my most popular speeches.

All of these speeches might seem very different from each other, but for me they have a very logical and clear connection: They are subjects that I have found so interesting that I had to study them deeply and yet been topics that the general business world did not have enough knowledge of at the moment.

In order to stay relevant as speakers we constantly need to stay ahead of the curve, constantly think of new speeches that we can develop.

I find that the best way to do that is to learn as much as we can from the clients that we are working with as speakers. But I think the best way to learn about the process of developing new speeches is to learn from other speakers.

Thus my afternoon in the sun with Magnus today.

What is your next speech going to be about?

Benjamin Loh is 29 years old and a professional speaker. Some might say that being 29 years old is too young to be a professional speaker, but I say that age is not expertise. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what matters is that you have something to say.

I could see a lot of myself in Benjamin as I started my career as a professional speaker myself at 27 (20 years ago – God, times flies…)

At that time I was an expert on Internet and business because I had written a book about Internet and marketing (and also because frankly, there were very few other experts on the Internet in Sweden in 1994-1995.)

To be an expert you just need to know more than the audience…

But regardless of age, a speaker needs to have an inner theme: something that burns inside of him or her that is what drives the speaker to want to speak, something that is pushing the person to constantly research his or her topic. a Theme that is an extension of who the speaker is as a human being.

The last few months I have been doing quite a lot of mentor sessions with other speakers and very often the sessions turns out to be about finding – or refining – the speakers inner theme.

Is is amazing to witness the transformation that happens when a speaker suddenly connects with his or her inner theme. And considering that it takes one hour of coaching to do it is probably the best investment a speaker can do.

What I have come to understand is that very often speakers have not fully understood what their inner theme is.

But when the connection to the inner theme happens it’s like all the pieces in a puzzle falls into place: suddenly a vision is visible.

The session today with Benjamin was a perfect example of that.

We started by talking about the themes he speaks on (public speaking and Millennials) and then started to dig deeper. I begun to ask him questions:

Why did you become a speaker?

Why did you pick the subjects that you speaks on?

What is the common denominator of these topics?

What drives you?

Quite quickly, based on his answers, a theme started to emerge. I packaged it together and presented it to him, and he liked it, but somehow I could see it in his body language and on his energy levels that the theme that I had identified was not the true inner theme.

So I decided to dig deeper.

I asked him about his childhood. About the true feelings that he has when he stands on stage.

And a different story started to emerge. A totally different inner theme.

Now we had two themes.

I asked him how he felt about theme “A” and theme “B” and he said: “Theme “A” is the theme I want to give, it’s me serving my clients. Theme “B” is who I really am inside…”

When he was talking about theme “A” he was using a “sales voice”, when he was talking about theme “B” he was talking with a voice that can only be described as “primal”.

It was obvious for the two of us that theme “B” was his real inner theme – a theme that connected to his very core.

I do these coaching sessions for free. It’s my way of giving back to the speaking community, but it is also a very valuable way for me to learn about my industry and my profession. Helping other speakers find their inner theme makes it easier for myself to look at my own role as a speaker.

As they say: “The best way to learn is to teach.”

Today I learnt about the value – and the power – of digging deeper. Of not settling for an answer that “sounds good”, but to keep going until you find the answer that is “true”.

Then when you find that “true reason” for why you speak THEN you can start building on that until you find a topic that you can package and sell to clients. But if your topics are not sprung from the most fundamental values of who you are as a person you will never be a great speaker. But if they are – you have the potential to be great.

If you are not 100% sure about what your inner theme really, really is – then I highly recommend you set aside time to figure that out. It is the number one thing you can do to develop as a speaker.

As a bonus you will find the calling of your life.

 

(Hong Kong)

Speaking is a bit of a paradox: It’s the easiest job in the world, yet one of the hardest skills to master.

In one way it is really simple: Just go on stage and speak. Everyone – except a few mute people – can speak, so technically everyone has the basic skill needed to be a speaker.
Yet still we all know how the majority of speeches that we hear are uninspiring, boring, uninteresting or bad.
So why is that?
How can something so seemingly simple be so hard to do well?

I look at the art of speaking like the slogan for the game Othello: “Five minutes to learn – a lifetime to master”.

And every time I give a speech – or hear a speech – I try to digest what made the talk great, average or poor.

Now, after 20 years of being a professional speaker – the last 15 as full time speaker – and after delivering more than 2000 speeches and after sitting through (or watching online) probably 10,000’s of speeches of the most shifting quality I have come to the conclusion that the most important words to remember as a speaker are the words “affinity” and “rapport”.

Affinity means: “a natural liking for and understanding of someone or something: he had a special affinity with horses.”

Rapport means: “a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other’s feelings or ideas and communicate well: she was able to establish a good rapport with the children | she had an instant rapport with animals.”

(Interesting how the dictionary chooses to exemplify these two words with a humans ability to connect to animals – but in the context that I am speaking about these words it’s about your ability as a speaker to connect with the audience.)

We often hear about the need for a speaker “to connect with the audience” – but I actually think it is the other way around: As a speaker you need to make sure that the audience connects with you.

You might not think there is a difference, but there is.
It’s subtle but it is there.

It’s like hooking up with someone in a bar: Walking up to someone can work well, but the more sophisticated technique is to give hints and send signals to the other person so that the other person walks up to you. The audience is a sensitive being – it doesn’t want to be picked up. It want’s to feel that it is in charge.

And that’s where affinity and rapport comes in.

As a speaker you need to get the audience want to like you.

It might seem unfair, but if the audience decides that they do not like you – then they tend to decide that they do not like your message either. Your message is deemed guilty by association.

When I say “like” I do not mean you should try to change who you are or what you stand for. Nothing screams “unlikable” as someone who is fake or artificial.

But what you can do is to try to find that connection between you and your audience.

Today I spoke for an insurance company called “FWD” with operations in 7 countries in Asia. In the briefing meeting that I had with the client I also got to know that they were just opening up in Singapore. A few minutes before the speech I ask to be introduced to the man running Singapore and ask him more about what kind of products they will be offering in Singapore. He informs me that they are going to offer a competitive travel insurance.

In the beginning of my speech I mention to the audience how I normally am not a client for the companies that I speak for (I give the example of how one of my recent clients was an Oil&Gas company and how my next client would be bankers in Luxembourg) and then I shared with them how excited I was to speak to this group because I had just found out about this great travel insurance they were going to launch and how I would sign up to be one of their first clients.

I then said: “I would not be surprised if, over my life time, you are going to make more money on me than I am going to make out of you.”

And then I smiled.

The audience gave me a applause, a friendly laughter and warm smiles.

They had connected with me.
I was not just a speaker there as a hired gun to speak at yet another conference.
I had shown interest in what they did, been convinced that they had a great product and decided to join their company as a client.

Affinity and Rapport.

(It’s important that they really felt that I was going to become a client, and I am really going to ask them to contact me about their services when they are ready to launch.)

Lesson:
One of my strongest messages to people who want to be speakers is: “It’s not about you – it’s about the message that the audience takes with them” – and that is true.

But it is also true that your message will not received unless the audience is willing to listen to you. And the very best way to make someone listen to you is to make them want to listen to you.

And that you achieve by building affinity and rapport.

 

(Picture of an audience of one of my precious speeches.)