Month: April 2020

The business of speaking

The good news about professional speaking in these Corona crisis. (Professional Speaking. Episode 280.)

By Fredrik Haren

Four different events this week have made me feel that the people who book speakers are now getting serious about moving keynote speeches online.

When the Coronavirus hit the world a lifetime ago (well, ok, two months ago or so, but you know what I mean) speakers started to see their bookings being cancelled as conferences got shut down. The professional speaking world got ready for some lean times. The longer the crisis goes on the more obvious it becomes that the time for large gatherings of groups of people is still far off.

That is the bad news. (Especially for the MICE industry.)

The good news is that it seems that clients have drastically shifted their views on virtual keynotes

And before you start filling the comment field with comments like “This is nothing new: I have been doing webinars for X weeks/months/years” please read the whole post. 😉

Some clients have booked virtual speakers for ages. And some clients were faster than others to shift to virtual conferences/speeches. (Fun fact: I became a professional speaker in 1995 and played around with streaming video content in 1998 (Yes, 22 years ago! We were actually the representative of Vxtreme, one of the world’s first video streaming software (we are talking streaming video on modems here (!)…)

So, yes, “video content streamed on the Internet” is nothing new, but what IS new, is how clients are much more actively looking into how virtual speeches can help solve their problems of inspiring their people.

After being a keynote speaker for 25 years, is that the sentiment of the clients has changed from virtual keynotes being something fringe and not very interesting to now being the go-to solution.

Most likely that comes from a mix of:

– Embracing reality (the in-real-life conference they had planned just is not going to happen for a while)

– Higher acceptance of Zoom, WebEx etc as tools that actually can be used for keynote delivery

Virtual keynotes going mainstream is a game-changer. And I feel this week is the week that “booking speakers for virtual keynotes” went from “once in a blue moon” to “a normal way to book a speaker”.

This week I have gotten one request per day for a (paid) virtual keynote speech. And here is the key insight: I did NOT push or promote virtual speeches to any of these clients. The demand came from them. That’s why this week is remarkable, I think. Suddenly many more of the clients are ready.

Speakers should be aware of that I think. (And no, that does not mean that I think traditional keynotes are dead. When we are allowed to meet in big groups again there will be a huge demand to catch up with other humans in real life and I am guessing record numbers of attendees for many conferences. And that might happen quicker than we think – or it might take longer than we think.)

The good news is that “virtual keynotes” just went from “fringe” to “normal”.

This week is the week that that change happened.

As a speaker are you ready for what that means?

(I would love to hear if you are seeing the same change happening. Let me know in the comments.)

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The business of speaking

Happy Birthday from Professional Speaking (Professional Speaking 279)

By Fredrik Haren

In April 2015, I launched ProfessionalSpeaking.com as a vehicle to share – for free – my knowledge around all the aspects of professional speaking.

Since then the site has grown to over 270 blog posts, and the community has expanded more than 22,000 people on Facebook alone.

Thank you for your support!

I love the process of sitting down every week to share with you what I have learnt about the amazing world of speaking.

To get to spread your message to the world is a gift more valuable and rewarding than almost anything else.

Today though, to celebrate the birthday of ProfessionalSpeaking.com, I have a quick question for you. I would love to hear:

What do you like about Professional Speaking?

What would you love to learn next?

What would you like to get more of? What would you like less of?

Let me know by hitting “reply” on this email.

It would be the best gift I could think of receiving.

Thanks,

Fredrik Haren

p.s. what can I help with next?

What are some topics or areas related to professional speaking – whether it be delivering a great keynote speech, booking more gigs or finding your inner theme – that you’d like me to write about next?
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How to become better as a speaker

Speakers: Stalk yourselves. (About repeatedly rewatching ourselves speak) (Professional Speaking. Episode 278)

By Fredrik Haren

“Watch yourself speak.” That is one of the most common advice out there for becoming a better speaker if you ask experienced speakers.

And it is probably the advice that beginner speakers ignore the most. They know they should be watching themselves speak. But they don’t.

But you should.

And not only film yourself once and watch it once.

But film yourself often. And watch yourself often.

After 25 years of speaking and more than 2000 speeches delivered, I still do.

But here is the “expert tip”: Watch the SAME speech over and over again.

Because every time you do you will see different aspects. (Just like watching a movie over and over again. Every time you rewatch a movie you notice new things.)

And when you have watched the same speech 10, 15, 20 times then you start to notice small subtle things that you do that you would never notice would you always insist on only watching each speech once or twice.

I have just spent last week re-watching a video of myself speak 4 more times. A speech that I have most likely already seen 50 times – at least.

And yet, every time I watched it this week I found new things to improve – or new things that I notice that I do well.

Because watching yourself speak is not ONLY about identifying things you could do better – which can be difficult for your ego. (And which is the reason that so many beginner speakers “cheat” on watching themselves – they are afraid to hurt that ego…)

But watching yourself over and over is also about identifying what you are doing WELL – and if you look at it that way it becomes easier to “convince yourself” to sit down and watch a speech of yourself speaking over and over again.

So now go and find that speech of yours and watch it again. And again. And again.

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