I would like to add a twist to the idea of speakers customising their speech to an audience.

Anyone teaching anyone about speaking professionally will talk about the need to customise the speech to the audience or to the event. And I agree, being able to add stories, examples, facts etc that are selected uniquely for the event you are speaking at makes a lot of sense.

But I would like to today talk about a special kind of customisation which I call “customerization”.

Customerization is when you infuse a story/example/fact etc into a speech that comes from when you spoke for a similar client before.

Let me give you an example.

This week I did a speech for luxury giant LMVH on Monday and for the Ministry of Education on Tuesday. (Yes, perhaps the two most different groups of clients you can imagine, but this mix of clients is the beauty of being a professional speaker.)

For the LMVH group (which owns a series of luxury houses like Louis Vuitton and champagne brand Krug) I was able to infuse a story about how I earlier this year worked with the Krug HQ around what it means to be a truly global company.

When speaking for the Ministry of Education I could tell a story about the last time I visited the Ministry of Education and had a funny experience with the security guard where the moral of the story was relevant to the topic of my speech.

In both instances the story I included was both
a) relevant to the topic of the speech
b) relevant to the client as it came from a previous encounter with the client

So to “customerize” a speech means to customise it squared: both making the content relevant for the client and at the same time connecting with the client by telling a story about when you interacted with them (or a similar client) in a speech before.

The longer you are a speaker and the more speeches you have done the more you will get relevant stories from previous speeches that you can infuse into the new speeches when the time is right

Did it work?

Well, I think “customerization” was one of the reasons that at both of these speeches I got requests for another speech right after I was done. Who knows perhaps at those speeches I will bring up something I picked up at the two speeches I just did…

 

(Pictures are the two opening slides for my two speeches, quite different as you can tell…)

 

This is might look like a post about fitness, but it is actually a post about professional speaking, specifically a post about what speakers who are just starting out need to understand about building a speaking career.

But let’s start with some words about fitness:

This summer I turned 50 and decided to “get fit @ 50”.

I must admit that my 40’s was not my most fit decade, ok, I will be honest, it was my least fit decade.

But knowing I was going to turn 50 this year I decided to do a push for a more healthy life style.

And without much effort I have seen some amazing improvements.

I am far from as fit as I plan to become, but this is a post about how the easy wins that come early on.

I lost 6 kg in a couple of months. (For someone who is 184 cm and was clocking in at 80 kg that it not so much to start with. But my scale now shows the number 73.8 kg. The first time in decades I have been so slim)

When I decided to get fit I could do one set of two (2!) chin-ups or pull-ups. (Did I tell you I was not very fit…) Two months later I can now easily to three sets of 10.

When I started I could hardly run to the bus without losing my breath. Just a couple of weeks after starting to run regularly I just ran my first 10K in 20 years – and I did it under the hour.

Same effect with number of push-ups I can do. Or sit-ups.

I am just AMAZED how easily I could drastically improve my fitness level from a “beginner” position to a “better than most” position.

Now, I am totally aware that it will be harder to get from 10 to 20 pull-ups than to get from 2-10 just like it will be much harder to get to 10K in 50 minutes than to get to the 10K in 59 minutes that I just did today.

Easy wins are followed by harder and tougher wins.

Which brings us to speaking.

I have coached many beginner speakers and they are often intimidated by the work and commitment needed to become a world class global keynote speaker.

They see the road from where they are to where they want to go and they see a mountain.

But just like it is easy to get more fit than the average person, it is easy to get better than the average speaker.

Time and time again I see how speakers who actually take the time to watch the videos of themselves and ask people to give feedback on what they should improve – and who then take this advice to heart and change things for the better do DRASTIC improvements as speakers.

Speaking might actually be one of those jobs where it is the easiest to become better than average.

Now to be world class you need to tweak all those tiny little details, and work very hard to fine tune the small things, but that is a different chapter.

If you are just getting started in your speaking career identify the 10 things you need to improve on and commit yourself to fixing them.

I promise you that the result per time invested will be off the charts.

Just like my strength, stamina has improved drastically in the last few weeks and months.

Come to think of it: Perhaps we should spend most of our time quickly becoming much better at the things we know little about.

Like if your writing is bad, book a ten hour consulting with a copywriter
If you cooking skills suck attend a cooking class
If you look terrible on camera google “How to look better on camera”

etc.

Life is full of low-hanging fruits when it comes to self-improvement.

Pick them.

Todays post is an interview with David JP Philips who has studied 5000 speeches to find out what makes a great speech. Interviewed him on my island today.