I know this chapter title probably sounds like quite a big claim right now, but this book is about a process and system that I've developed over the last eight to ten years, where I've managed to take myself from somebody who'd never do a talk or presentation anywhere, to someone who is now in demand around the world as a speaker – and who always gets great reviews and feedback from the audience and the event organisers. But, more importantly, I never get nervous these days and actually look forward to doing presentations and talks!
Now, I know many of you reading this won't necessarily be aiming for a career in public speaking – or being a paid speaker as such – you just want to add the skills of speaking and presenting to what you already do.
There can be nothing better than being able to stand up in front of a room of people and deliver a message. A message that inspires or motivates people, or maybe a message that gets people interested in what you or your organisation does. A message you hope will get the audience to take some action afterwards and perhaps even engage with you in a transaction or on some other level.
Being able to do this can also make you the envy of your peers and associates, because so many people in the world would never do what you are about to be able to do.
The ability to confidently deliver a message to a group of people is empowering. After all, great speeches in history have moved millions of people and created a future very different to how it would have been without those speeches.
As I write this, I am reminded of two speaking engagements that I did recently on the exact same topic. One was on a Monday and the other was the very next day on the Tuesday.
At the event on the Tuesday, when I was introduced the audience applauded and looked excited for me to be there, despite the fact that they had not met me before and they didn't even know an external speaker was going to present to them that day at their event.
It was a very different experience to the day before, the Monday, when after being introduced I walked to the front of the room in silence, no applause, just deadly silence!
What is even more interesting about this is experience is that the Monday group had heard me speak to them five months before, they had loved my presentation so much that they had to get me back again to share even more with them … and yet there was no applause as I went up to the front of the room.
Why was this?
After all, you could understand it if it had happened the other way around. A crowd that had heard me before and loved me had given me huge applause and the Tuesday group who'd never met me had just stayed quiet.
Interesting. Well, in fact the difference was, quite simply, how I was introduced. Both introductions were very short but the words used and the tonality used were very different. The introductions were very short presentations themselves with very different outcomes, despite being about the same topic – me.
At the Monday event, when it came to my slot the person introducing me simply said in a monotone voice: ‘Mark spoke back in July and has come back today to share more with us, so I will now hand over to Mark’.
At the Tuesday event, the person introducing me said in an excited voice: ‘Really pleased Mark is here today to share ideas on Transformational Leadership, please give a warm welcome to Mark’.
So, a different tonality and a few different words ‘hand over to Mark’ vs ‘a warm welcome to Mark’ – these four or five words and how they were said made the difference between 80 people clapping and looking excited and 80 people sitting in a deadly silence.
A lot of presentations and talks that people deliver have their whole 30 or 60 minutes delivered like that Monday introduction. A much smaller percentage of presentations are delivered with the words and tonality that move people in unimaginable ways.
So this is why public speaking – and doing it correctly – is so powerful and so important. Not to mention rewarding!
Now, when I say doing it correctly, I don't mean there are 101 tips coming up in this book on what to do and what not to do when you are at the front of a room delivering a message.
What you have here is a process and way of developing yourself and your content so that delivering content or a message is easy and the audience are always engaged with both you and your content.
Everywhere I go and deliver my own presentations, I hear from so many people who want to develop this skill further and get better at doing this. Both from the standpoint of reducing their fear, if they've got fear, and of getting better results from the presentations that they do.
In my experience, people want to deliver a presentation that they are going to look forward to delivering and that they know the audience is going to like, enjoy and get value from.
I have heard it said that when people are surveyed about their biggest fears, the fear of public speaking ranks higher than the fear of death. And I also heard somebody once say that this means that at a funeral, most people would rather be in the box going in the ground than standing at the top reading the eulogy!
Now, I'm sure it's not that bad. I'm sure none of us would actually wish that in reality – although it might feel like that when the dreaded fear and feelings of impending doom strike when it is not something you are comfortable doing.
So I have written this book for all those people who tell me they want to be able to present with confidence, like I do, and know the steps I take to be able to deliver great presentations.
When I ask what stage they're at with public speaking, I realise most of the time that they are far more advanced than I was when I started out doing presentations. I'm not sure it is possible for anyone to be more scared than I once was.
Because they are far more advanced than I was, I know that I can easily help them to fast track what they're doing and to get far better than they currently are and far better results than they're currently getting. And that's the reason I've decided to put down everything I know, have done and continue to do, in this book.
This book is also for you even if you've never done a presentation before.
