Sunday, June 3rd, 2007...11:12 pm
Public Speaking Tips?
I’m getting ready to attend the Spree West conference in about two weeks. I’ve been looking forward to it since being asked a few months ago to present on The Hundred Dollar Business.
They’d Rather Be In The Coffin?
Have you heard that people fear public speaking more than death? I love the quote that goes something like this: “Given the choice between being in the coffin, or speaking at the funeral, many people would opt for the coffin.”
For me, if I had to choose between being in the coffin or being the speaker, I’d take either one– just as long as I didn’t have to be in the audience, being bored to tears by the eulogy!
Anyway, that quote strikes me as odd because I LOVE having opportunities to speak. In fact, when I was an early teenager, I thought the best career ever would be “motivational speaking”.
I’m… glad I moved past that phase, however! 
If anything, I’m more concerned with having good content & not putting an audience to sleep. So as I’m getting the presentation ready, I thought I’d inquire with you for some “dos & don’ts”:
Survey
1. What should I definitely AVOID doing as a speaker?
2. What key things about December’s Hundred Dollar Business kiosk should I include? (The audience is specialty retailers– mall owners, cart & kiosk owners, etc.)
3. I’ve got 60 minutes for the presentation– how much time should I budget for main points and Q & A?
4. What are some ways to sustain audience attention?
5. What should be “the result” of the presentation?
(People want to start a HDB? They want to read more about December’s project? They feel empowered to start their own kiosk or cart, or change the way they currently operate?)
6. How can I include the audience in the presentation, instead of doing traditional lecturing?
It never hurts to get some market data! If you’ve got a minute and can point me in the right direction, that would be wonderful. 
(This was cross-posted from The Carolynn Blog).
10 Comments
June 4th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Will you be using PowerPoints? Remember the 10/20/30 rule of a PowerPoint presentation: No more than 10 slides, No longer than 20 minutes, No smaller than 30pt font.
Those are the guidelines. Guy Kawasaki gives more details on his blog but that’s the gist of it.
June 5th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Is the audience expecting you to talk only about your kiosk project or HDB in general? The premise of HDB is so cool, IMHO, that one way to increase participation is to ask the audience for HDB ideas (or HDB ideas related to retailing). You can also talk about how the time and budget constraints of HDB forced you to do some things differently, and the good/bad results of having to do that. I think those constraints are what sets you apart from the other kiosk operators, so that would be what I’m interested in hearing if I were in the audience.
June 5th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
What a great opportunity!
My best suggestion is that you show pictures, keep your slides to less than ten words on each one and make sure the words or pictures don’t repeat what you will say.
In other words, don’t read off your Powerpoint slides.
Here’s one I’m going to use at my next speaking engagement:
After you introduce yourself, you say, “It’s only fair that you introduce yourselves, so we’re going to go around the room and everyone can say their name and where they’re from.”
This is especially useful if you’ve got a LOT of people in the room.
“Now that I look around, I can see we don’t have time for that. So on the count of three, I want everyone to say their name and where they’re from.”
“Ready? One, two, three.”
Hopefully, everyone will respond. If not, make ‘em do it again.
The goal is to make them understand that the success of the presentation depends as much upon their participation as yours.
Is it crazy? Absolutely. Could it fail? Um…. could. But I’m definitely going to try it. You’re welcome to adapt it for yourself.
Best of luck.
June 5th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Smile your lovely smile and enjoy yourself. I’ll be thinking of you.
Hugs,
YOM
June 5th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
@Ryan
I love the 10/20/30– thanks for reminding me of it!
I am planning to user PPT and pictures, video clips, etc. I should send a test version to all of you so you can yay or nay it.
Thanks again!
June 5th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
@HS
I think it’s general HDB with an emphasis on kiosk, given that they are all in the mall/specialty retail industry.
I love your idea of discussing the pros/cons of the budget constraints. That’s an excellent point– because everyone there is going to know a LOT more about retail/malls/kiosk things than I will, my only “advantage” per se is that we approached it HDB style.
Thanks for the feedback!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
@Tim
I wish I could port in all of my amazing HDB volunteers, because each of you would contribute something awesome.
That’s a good point re: not regurgitating PPT slides. When that happens, I always feel like, “Why did the speaker bother showing up, why not just send a PPT presentation in lieu of speaking?”
I like your intro idea. It reminds me that I need to open with flair and set a good tone for the conversation between the audience and the presentation… hmmm…
I’ll let you know how everything goes!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
@Yom
Thanks for the support! I’ll be thinking about you also– that you’re on that upcoming cruise!
Always good to have my Fan Club from home checking out the blog.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
So…have you given your presentation yet? How did it go? If you haven’t, Guy Kawasaki has posted several articles on his blog including: “Speaking as a Performing Art” (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/06/speaking_as_a_p.html), “The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint” (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html), “Bite Your Tongue” (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/06/bite_your_tongu.html), and “How to Get a Standing Ovation” (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/how_to_get_a_st.html).
Hope those help.
June 20th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Ryan,
It was great– thanks for asking. I’m just about to post the powerpoint we used.
And, thanks for the links! I’d seen the 10/20/30 rule before, and we tried to stick closely to that. Although we had an hour to give the presentation, but we kept it to 40 minutes so we could have a lot of time for questions.
Thanks again!
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