Have You Earned The Right to Speak

The quickest way to fail in public speaking is to try to present yourself as an expert in a subject you have not Earned the Right to Speak about.

As a professional speaker and facilitator I have sat through a lot of corporate events in the past 30 years and had the misfortune to experience some dire presentations, so bad so bad that the audience switched off or worse, got up and left during the presentation. The cause of these train wrecks was usually either where the presenter used someone else's presentation slides or created their own slides but clearly was not an expert in the subject matter.

Unfortunately many companies insist on staff using a set of slides prepared by a marketing or publicity department. Often junior members of staff have to stand in for their boss and deliver their presentation. Or the worst habit is presenters passing their PowerPoint slides around the office.  All three types of presentation result in  people using slides as a substitute for understanding the content. If you are using someone else's slides, you still have to put in the effort to understand the material sufficiently well that you could make the presentation without the slides.

I used to chair and manage a series of national road shows which involved a lot of guest speakers from sponsoring insurance and technology companies . Often the sponsors liked to make sure that their local representatives had a high profile at the local events and they were assigned to deliver the company presentation. But that was where the problem started.

Because they didn't have to bother preparing the slide presentation, often the speakers would not bother to even look though the slides before the event. Where they did look though it was usually a day or so before the event - or on the night before in their hotel room and often what they did was no more than look through the slides.  That is not enough to know and understand the material. If you have to use a corporate presentation know it and the underlying content inside out

On the day I watched so many speakers stumble through presentations, reading from the slides and even looking blankly at the slide not even sure what to say.

Dale Carnegie used to claim that a speaker should know at lest 40 times more about a subject that they were going to present. The audience is there to listen to you because they believe that you have expertise in a subject that they can use in their business or job. They want to know that you have earned the right to speak.

If you don't really know the subject - you should not speak about it. I spent a lot of my career in sales and marketing - like all professionals I am always seeking new ideas and I want to hear from people who have knowledge and experience they can share. All I want is one good idea to make it work my while listening to a speech - I can tell in a couple of minutes if the speaker is going to deliver that. These are the tell tale signs of a speaker who has not earned the right to speak.

• The speaker lacks confidence because they are unsure of themselves
• There is too much content on each slide because its really a script
• The speaker reads from the slide because they don't know the material
• The speaker has to read the slide before speaking
• There are too many slides
• The speaker speaks at the screen instead of the audience
• The speech lacks any personal stories and anecdotes
• The speaker mumbles, umms and ahhs their way through the speech. 
• The speech is monotone and dull 
• At the end of the speech I could not tell you what the speech was about

If you want to avoid giving a deadly boring presentation then make sure that you are an expert in the subject.  Make sure that you have lots of personal experience stories and anecdotes to share, make sure that you have a unique perspective and a few ideas that are your own. Most importantly tell me about the problems you have encountered and overcome -

Show me with your stories, your knowledge and your expertise that you have truly Earned the Right to Speak.

"Easy Member Pro" review

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At first glance, Easy Member Pro might be a little bit intimidating because it is a membership site script. However, the product comes with both a user manual and step-by-step videos. The videos are a what we especially liked. It doesn't matter if you've never installed a script before, Easy Member Pro will guide you through. You really have to try it to believe it; even if you are a technophobe.

After the script is installed, you'll find that the membership interface is incredibly powerful as well. It has its own content management system; which is very well developed into something your customers will really enjoy

What really sets the script apart is the way it automates tasks for you as the owner, for the customer, and for affiliates. Your admin panel will allow you do everything from mass e-mail your customers to changing the colors of your website. It really doesn't get any simpler than that.

In fact, I was quite surprised at the low cost of Easy Member Pro -- many of the top membership site scripts cost a pretty penny these days. When I started using Easy Member Pro, I wasn't expecting much because the price is a lot lower than others out there. However, when you get to utilize the full script you'll see that it integrates many of the features of the higher-end scripts, but for a much lower price.

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What Makes a Great Speech?

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So you have just sat through a great speech and even joined in to give the speaker an spontaneous standing ovation. But did you stop to ask yourself "What made that such a great speech?"

Everyone who speaks wants to deliver a great speech, but all too often that becomes the goal instead of focusing on what makes a speech great and what makes a speech great is not the way it was performed - but the content - and in particular the message.

For a speech to be really great there has to be a clear simple message that is so memorable that when someone asks you a day or so later later what the speech was all about you can answer them almost without thinking.

Think back for a moment to the last great speech you heard - What was the message?  What was the point of the speech. I'l bet that you struggle with this.  In know because I often cannot answer that question - even when it seemed to be a great speech.

Don't worry about performance skills - focus on content. What do you want people to do differently, what action do you want them to take. If you struggle with this - look at the key points you are going to make in your speech and ask yourself  - "So What?  Why is that important?"     ,,,and keep on asking that question until you get to the clear message.

I love Seth Godin - and I think the reason I love to hear him speak is because he has a clear message. He may speak for ten minutes or half an hour on the topic but at the end there is a clear message - there is a take away that I can use and will remember tomorrow, next week, next year.

For example his book Purple Cow has a simple message - Be successful by Being Remarkable.  If you read the book or listen to any of his speeches on the topic - that single simple message is at the core of it. Be Successful by Being Remarkable.  (OK occasionally Remarkable is replaced by Extraordinary - but its still the same message.

Watch this recent five minute video of Seth explaining his idea.

So what should you take away from this blog post?

Next time you write a speech - start with a simple clear message and build your speech around making that message unforgettable.