Short version:

This week I did three speeches for three different audiences. One went much worse than the other two. Why? Because I got off on the wrong foot with the audience, and because I let that affect my delivery.

Remember: It is not about you – it is about the speech – BUT it is about you and the audience. So make sure you love the audience before you go up on stage, and make sure they can feel it.

Long version:

This week I did three speeches for three different audiences: One for business leaders in Kiev, Ukraine, one for a group of global managers of Hitachi and one for a group of teachers in Singapore. Three totally different assignments with different goals from the clients.

One of the three speeches went much worse than the other two. Why? Because I got off on the wrong foot with the audience, and because I let that affect my delivery.

I opened the speech for the teachers with a line that I have used many times for teachers, but I got the wording wrong this time and it came out harsher than it was intended (It was intended as a way to build rapport, but I said it wrong and the audience took it as a rude or insensitive comment. I was a stupid thing to do, but instead of correcting myself I just kept going thinking I could “salvage” the situation later on.

But the damage was done.

And when I later did an audience interaction where I could feel that the group was not engaged, I did the mistake of feeling disappointed by the lack of engagement that I got, instead of seeing it as a sign that I had to change approach with the group.

Basically I got off on the wrong foot with the the audience by not being 100% present in the room to be ready to connect with the audience with love from the start. That created the situation where I communicated my message with a bad choice of words, which created a distance with the audience.

It’s ironic that the speech that went less well was done in a conference room that was named “LOVE”! (As soon as I came out of the room and saw the name of the room, I took a picture of the sign to remind myself to always approach any audience with a loving mind.)

Remember: It is not about you – it is about the speech – BUT it is about you and the audience. As a speaker we are just containers for the message, but as speakers we are also humans. And a group full of people in an audience will decide if they want to listen to the message partly based on how they feel about the person delivering it.

We might just be containers for the message, but there is a reason why producers of liquids such as beer or wine put such effort into designing the bottle…

Make sure you love the audience before you go up on stage, and make sure they can feel it. It will make the more open to hear your message.

My main focus on the ProfessionalSpeaking.com blog is to share my own insights and knowledge about how to become a global speaker, but this week I will share not one, but two, posts about what I learned about global keynote speaking from another speaker: Brenda Bence. Brenda is a good friend of mine and perhaps the most professional professional speaker I know.

This last Saturday I was part of the team that organised the CSP Academy where Brenda Bence and Tom Abbott spoke. Both Brenda and Tom (and I) are CSP’s (Certified Speaking Professionals) at we had a full day of great learnings. In this post I will focus on Brenda’s session because she did something I really love: she dissected a keynote in detail, and I think that is one of the best ways to really learn about the magic skill of creating a great keynote.

Here is some of the things I learnt from that dissection:

In the intro: Make a promise.

The beginning of a speech is not about creating rapport with the audience, building credibility of yourself as a speaker, or explaining what your speech will be about. All of that can be in an intro too, but Brenda made the point that the MAIN purpose of the opening of a speech is to Make a Promise, a promise to the audience of what they will get out of this speech if they decide to pay attention. The speech should then deliver on that promise.

When asking a question.

a) Avoid questions that start with “Why…”

The word “Why?” is a more negative word than “who, where, when, what” etc.

b) Turn “yes/no” questions into open questions.

Instead of asking: “Have you ever spoken to a weird group as a speaker?” Brenda asked: “What is the most strange audience you have ever spoken to?” (For the first question the people who answer “no” are lost after they say “no” since they feel the speech is not relevant to them.)

Storytelling.

When telling a story about what happened to you, let the audience into your head when you tell the story (in other words play out the inner voice in your head that you heard when it happened. That helps the audience feel like they are there in the story with you).

When telling a story consider NOT having a picture to illustrate your story as having a picture guides the audience mental picture. Without an picture they have to imagine what it looked like, and as Brenda said: “Our imagination is much more fun than any picture.”

Build your speech around a few pillars and build each pillar with a Core Question. End each pillar with a Foundational Phrase: a phrase that summarises your point in a way that is easy to remember, has a good rhyme and rhythm to it. (Like “If you don’t stack up… It all falls down” or “Show up best for your Guests” or “If you doubt… they will leave you out.”

As Brenda put it: “If there is nothing to easily remember you will not be a memorable speaker.”

About presenting.

If you start to doubt on stage Brendas advise was: “Get out of your head and into your heart.” and that is just so true.

About how you talk to the audience.

Build your speech so that the speech is about the message to the audience, not about you.

(She gave the example of, if for example you need to speed up your delivery due to time constraints, you should say: “Buckle your seat belts because the messages will be coming at you quickly…” instead of saying: “Buckle up, I am going to talk fast.”

Same with your intro: Do not write a speaker intro that is about you and your bio, instead write an intro that is about how what you have done will help the audience. As Brenda put it (in one of her “Foundational Phrases”: “Put the process on the pedestal – not the person.”)

About collecting stories.

Here I will just quote Brenda: “You have to have Objective Curiosity. Life is just one big story so always keep a notebook or some post-it notes near by and write down every story that lives throws at you that you might be able to use. It’s a privilege to collect stories.”

I agree with every word she said.

About what to do when your time is cut short just before you go on stage.

If you are suddenly given a shorter time than was originally agreed then do not rush your speech, instead re-write it in your head and make it a new, shorter speech. Rushing a speech, or skipping over parts to make it to the end is cheating the audience, and to quote Brenda again: “”Do not cheat the audience. They can feel it and they do not deserve it.”

Amen.

In part two (published later this week) I will share what I learnt from Brenda by having a one-hour one-on-one interview with her in Hong Kong a while back where she talked about the business side of her speaking business. Do not miss that post.

The fear of public speaking is one of the biggest fears people have. (It is right up there with dying in a terrorist attack and being beaten by a snake.)

As speakers we should be VERY happy for that. It means that 99% of people would rather die than do what we do.

I guess it is the same for people working with snakes – they are very happy that so many people hate snakes that the competition for working with snakes is quite small…

The fear of speaking most likely is not really a fear of speaking, it’s a fear of making a fool out of yourself and a fear of people thinking you are wrong.

As someone who has done professional speaking for 20 years I really do not understand the first reason. In today’s world where cameras are everywhere the chance of a video of you becoming viral on YouTube for all the wrong reasons is everywhere. Making a fool out of yourself is no longer limited to screwing up on stage, but might as well come from screwing up in an elevator, a warehouse, a side walk or a beach while being caught on camera and spread to the world.

So in a way the risk of looking like a fool for a huge group of people have been democratised… 😉

Now the fear of people thinking you are wrong is a more interesting issue.

The way to solve that is by:

a) Being prepared.
b) Saying things you believe

Or perhaps that should come in the other order:

a) Saying things you believe
b) Being prepared.

Tonight I attended the monthly meeting of Asia Professional Speakers Singapore, where I am the current President. The theme of the meeting was “FEAR” and we had three great speakers speaking on the topic of fear for speakers.

In this post I want to highlight a quote from one of the speakers, Adrienne Gibson, who said: “What makes great speakers great is that they tell their own story.”

When a speaker speaks from a place of authenticity he or she can get away with almost any message.

And if he or she then prepares well, meaning studies not only the topic but also the audience and how to best communicate to that audience then there really is very little to be afraid of as a speaker.

So lets aim at A) telling your truth B) in a way that is the exact way the audience need to hear it.

Now focus on figuring out those two things and you have nothing to fear as a speaker. And in the process you have written a very powerful speech.