My friends at Wiley, publishers of my last several books, asked me to do something I've never tried: Sign books while I deliver a presentation.
There were 150 people in line to get a copy of my book and we had a tight time window because we did not want to keep people waiting.
Yikes. Talk about multi-tasking!
I was also trying to pay attention to individual people in the audience (about 100 people were out of camera view).
At about the 6:00 point of this short video, you'll see me talking about Dr. Ruth and her new book. Dr. Ruth was in the crowd and she LOVED the tweet I did from the BEA floor Now exploring the Top 10 Secrets to Great Sex.
Here's what I find interesting about this. When you know your material really, really well, you can deliver a performance while doing other things. But this level of multi-tasking is impossible unless you are totally prepared.
The first time I recall being aware of this was when I sat in the front row at a Rolling Stones concert at Fenway Park in Boston in 2005. During Satisfaction, Ronnie Wood was playing right in front of me (see photo) while chatting up the cute girl right next to me: “Hello Love!” Ronnie said. “How are ya?”
Do you know your stuff so well that you can multi-task?
So I wanted to offer another set of ideas for successful public speaking. I was thinking about the differences in what I do now as a professional speaker with 50 gigs a year compared to what I was doing five years ago when I speaking about once a month.
After a gig, I run through video of the presentation with Nick.
I thought it might be interesting for those of you who are honing your own speaking skills to see the clip and hear from Nick about body language too. I realize this puts me out there for analysis, both good and bad, but I'm game.
So watch this clip from the Convention Industry CouncilCMP Conclave 2009 and then read Nick's comments below.
Here are Nick's comments on my performance, both good and areas for improvement:
"The great thing about David as a public speaker is that he is technically good so that his passion for the subject shines through. I should know – I'm his speaking coach. Every communication is two conversations, the content and the body language. When the two are aligned, you can be a persuasive, authentic, charismatic speaker – as David is. When they're not, people believe the body language every time. We're all unconscious experts in body language, and we pick it up instantly when someone is nervous, unprepared, winging it, or not passionate about the subject.
When I first started working with David, I could see right away that he had the passion and that the goal was to make a few technical improvements in his body language so that the passion could come through unfiltered.
All speakers have adrenaline-induced energy when they get up to speak. That energy comes out in different ways. David’s tended to come out in too much pacing around the stage. Pacing is good when you move purposefully to a point in relation to the audience, stop, plant your feet, and deliver. But when you just wander, you've got ‘happy feet’ and that’s distracting for the audience.
David quickly got the idea, and one of the great things that comes through on this video is the combination of good motion and passion that he’s now – almost – mastered. His move out into the audience about half-way through is brilliantly timed – and it becomes the high point of the speech both in the room and on video. Notice how many people talk about the Air Force in relation to this presentation. David covered a number of topics, but it’s the Air Force that will be remembered, because he went into the personal space of the audience at that point.
Personal space is 4 feet to a foot and a half away from audience members. (Never go into intimate space – a foot and a half to zero – in a public setting.) Because we all crave personal connections with our speakers, celebrities, politicians, and famous criminals these days, thanks to TV, we really engage as an audience when a speaker gets into the personal space of a few of us.
David still needs to work on his motion when he’s on the stage. The goal is to move on a thought, plant your feet, and deliver to a different segment of the audience – and make it look natural. David still has a tendency to move a little too much across the stage just to get rid of adrenaline.
Remember, the point of mastering all this body language stuff is so that people will hear your message, rather than be distracted by something you’re doing. David is a great storyteller, and because he’s on the way to mastering the technical stuff, you can get his stories. He opens this clip with the Singapore Tattoo Show story, and it’s a perfect illustration of his point, that social media is a new, better way to market than spending millions on TV ads. That’s what a good speaker does: informs and entertains at the same time. There’s a reason why David is in such demand as a speaker these days."
Thanks Nick.
Thinking about body language has transformed my presentations. I hope my clip and Nick's analysis is helpful to you too.
But it was my absolutely dismal performance at the Social Media Club pool 2.0 party at South-by-Southwest that made me re-think this. My teammate Jonathan Fields, author of Career Renegade, and I, playing for the "Authors 2.0" team lost in the first round. Photo from the event courtesy of net2no.
I used to play a lot of pool while in university and later while living in Tokyo. I got pretty good. Sadly, I’ve lost my skills in the past decade or so, but I fondly recall when I was at the top of my game how it felt.
These days, I do a lot of public speaking. I first started about 20 years ago while I was living in Tokyo and some friends started the Tokyo Breakfast Toastmasters Club. I spoke at least once a month for six years as part of Toastmasters. Then I began to speak a lot at conferences and events for my work as VP marketing for several companies. Now I am on the speaking circuit full time.
So here's the idea:
Novice: When you first start playing pool, you're worried about just hitting the cue ball properly and not looking stupid. You want to at least get the white one to hit a colored one and if it gets in the hole, that’s a bonus. Your total attention is on that cue ball.
As a speaker, the first few times on the podium, you just want to deliver your content without passing out due to stage fright. Your total attention is on your presentation.
Intermediate:After you've played some pool, you start to be aware of your opponent. What is he doing? Shall I buy him a beer so he gets a bit more drunk and starts to miss?
After you've delivered a dozen or so presentations, you start to get a true sense of the audience as more than just a fuzzy haze of faces. How are they reacting? Did the joke work?
Advanced:You've got the important shots down cold and nearly always hit them. Your mind moves away from the actual shots and you're starting to think strategy. Instead of taking a difficult shot, should you go defensive and block your opponent in?
After about 50 or so presentations, you really know your material. In fact, you know your material so well that you don't think about it and instead your mind can focus on secondary things like where you stand, how you hold your hands and if the joke worked better with a one second pause before the punch line or two.
Professional:I was never even close to a professional-level pool player, but I saw some hustlers in action. What struck me was that it was always a given that they would sink the next shot, so their mind was focused on placement of the cue ball for the next shot. A good player could run the table because they were constantly setting up one shot ahead.
I've gotten to the point after doing hundreds of presentations that I can be thinking several slides ahead. While I am delivering, say, slide 42 I am focused on how I am setting up a punch line that comes at slide 44.
There is an amazing Zen-like focus when you have this much experience. You start to be aware of things in the room that even the audience is not aware of. I will often look into an audience of 300 people and be able to count exactly how many people are not looking at me and instead focused on their iPhone or BlackBerry. And I get pissed if the number is more than zero. At this point, all the time you are presenting, you are making mental notes for how to improve little things the next time.
At this level, both pool and public speaking is like a drug. You need a fix. Where is the next stage (or table)? How far do I have to travel till I’m in the comfort zone of being in front of 250 people? When will I next experience a line of 50 people wanting to say hello after a gig?
Anyone else hopelessly addicted to public speaking?
I've been to something like one hundred conferences and corporate events in the past several years as I travel the world delivering keynotes and running seminars. I've seen a few great speeches. Sadly, most speeches I see are not very good. Some are downright terrible.
I've been collecting some observations on what makes a good presentation and also drawing from my own experience.
Most of us have an opportunity to speak, perhaps at your industry event, or your company's sales conference, or to a local club.
Make the most of your opportunity.
1. Take it seriously. If 200 people are in a room and you speak for a half hour, you are taking up 100 hours of people’s time. I see many speakers "wing it" and it makes me feel sorry for the audience. Don't look bad.
2. Know the conference organizer's goals. When I speak, I work with organizers to deliver three goals in equal proportion: Education, entertainment, and motivation. Since I am a paid speaker, I must deliver on all three so the conference organizer is happy they invited me. You need to know the goals for being on the podium too. Why were you invited? How would the organizer define success?
3. Tell stories. When someone says: "Let me tell you a story...," you're interested, right? When someone says: "Let me tell you about my company...," is your reaction the same? It doesn't sound like a way you want to spend your valuable time, does it? Stories are exciting. Most presentations are dry. Open with a story. Tell stories to illustrate your point. It's fascinating to see an audience sit up and pay attention when you start to tell a story on the stage.
4. Nobody cares about your products (except you). Yes, it's just like what I say about Web marketing. What people do care about are themselves and ways to solve their problems. A speech is not about you; it is about your audience. You must resist the urge to hype your products and services. Even if you’re asked to speak about your company or your products, make it about your customers or the problem you solve instead.
5. Prepare and practice. Run through your presentation as many times as required so that you are completely comfortable with the material. You should know the presentation so well that you could do it without PowerPoint and without notes.
6. Don't use PowerPoint as a TelePrompTer. Slides are great for showing images, charts, and the like. Consider showing a short video. But definitely don't use slides to show bulleted lists of text. Yawn! Way too many people just read off their slides. Don't! PowerPoint is not a speaker's crutch; it is a way to illustrate your spoken point. By the way, some of the best speakers don't use slides at all.
7. Arrive early. There is nothing worse than a presenter fumbling with technology on a stage. Everyone becomes uncomfortable and it is nearly impossible to make up that bad first impression. You should plan to arrive at the venue with plenty of time to spare and go to the room at least one hour prior to when you go on. You may need to arrive much earlier if there are sessions before yours because you will want to set up and test your equipment and stand on the stage to get a feel of the room. Use the microphone to hear your voice. Get as comfortable as possible with the venue before people arrive (or when they are on a break). The conference organizer and the A/V people will love you for arriving early! And when you are comfortable with logistics, you will deliver a better speech.
8. Bring an electronic copy of your presentation. I always carry my presentation on a memory stick and wear it around my neck from the moment I step out of my house until after I have presented. I wear it on the plane and in the hotel. I wear it out to dinner. You never know what may happen to your computer (I spilled water on my computer in Brussels once and fried it), so having that backup is comforting.
9. Don't go long. When you build a speech and deliver it for the first time, it almost always runs long. Don't go over time! It's okay to end short because you can take a few questions, but running long makes the entire event schedule get out of whack. Worse, they may pull you off the stage, which looks awful.
10. Be aware of body language. My friend Nick Morgan, author of Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma says: "When words and body language are in conflict, body language wins every time." If you are nervous, it shows. If you don't believe what you're saying, it shows. If you aren't having fun, it shows. And your audience will always react to your body language instead of your words.
Photo of me presenting in Istanbul, Turkey on February 25, 2009 courtesyMediaCat.
![](<a href="http://www.webinknow.com"><img src="http://www.freshspot.typepad.com/DMS_WIN_sidebar_032712.jpg">Download DMS_WIN_sidebar_032712.jp"></a>){kind=link}