November 3, 2025 • 18 mins
This episode is a beginner friendly kit for anyone speaking in front of people, clubs, teams, boards, or conferences. You will learn a simple structure that uses fifteens and tens, how to build clean chunks, one idea, one story, one tool, how to use WIIFM so people lean in, and how to finish on time. We cover pre show nerves, mix and mingle to make friends, the smile on purpose trick, confidence monitors for secret notes, slide do’s, crowd control, and the silent vibrate alarm so you can pivot without staring at your watch. Short, sweet, on time, and packed with practical moves you can use this week.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club
Radio Show, where we give youthe scoop on all things private
golf and country clubs, frommastering leadership and
management, food and beverageexcellence, member engagement
secrets, board governance, andeverything in between, all while
keeping it fun and light.
Whether you're a club veteran,just getting your feet wet, or
somewhere in the middle, you arein the right place.
(00:20):
I'm your host, Denny Corby.
Welcome to the show.
In this episode, we are chattingabout speaking in front of
people, which, let's be honest,is most of us all the time, all
day, every day.
And I see more folks presentingin all capacities, in all
industries, not just ours.
And I just wanted to share sometips, some tricks, some little
(00:44):
moves that might help.
This is mostly beginner stuff,but some good all-around nuggets
in here when it comes topresenting and speaking and
giving presentations in front ofpeople.
I'm going to talk about tips andtricks.
I'm going to talk aboutstructure, how you can structure
a talk with different timeframes and how to edit that to
(01:05):
adjust in a lot to differenttime frames and just kind of
just brain dump a little bit ofsome of my little go-to hacks.
The number one thing is when youare presenting and you have the
ability and the opportunity andthe, you know, whether you're
paid, whether you're apresenter, a sponsor, a speaker,
it doesn't matter.
When you have the ability tospeak in front of a group, the
(01:25):
biggest thing is you should beable to and want to provide as
much value as you can, meaningthey should walk away with at
least one or two solid nuggets.
And it could be something smallor big, it doesn't matter.
But like there should be somelittle nuggets in there that if
people walk away, they might notlike you, but they might take
away something.
(01:46):
You know what I mean?
No.
But you want to engage, you wantto uh provide as much value and
give as much valuable content,data, whatever it is, that they
can walk away going, that wasnot a pitch fest.
So it's more especially for thevendors and partner suppliers.
But like if you actuallygenuinely have something to
sell, like do not sell it.
(02:07):
The product will sell itselfeventually.
The karma gods all come backfull, full circle.
So just provide as much valuableinformation as you can to the
audience that you are presentingto.
When you're presenting, whenyou're thinking about the group
that you are going to be infront of, whether it's your
peers, whether it's a CMAAevent, whether it's a board
(02:27):
event, whether it's, it could beanything, an end of the year, it
could be one of your teamevents.
One of the things you alwayshave to remember is when people
are there, when they're thereengaged in listening, they're
also thinking about theirfavorite radio station.
They're all tuned into W I I FM.
That was one of the things Isome I heard years ago is uh
(02:48):
everyone's always tuned intotheir favorite radio station,
W-I-I-F-M.
And that is what's in it for me.
Everyone's always thinking,what's in it for me.
So when you're thinking aboutyour topics, you want to keep it
nice and short and sweet andpalp, you know, palpable and
easy to consume.
You want to make it as easy aspossible, um, especially if it's
maybe a more complex topic.
But um, always want to thinkW-I-I-F-M, what's in it for my
(03:11):
listeners, what's in it for myaudience, what are they going to
get away from it?
And when you think about thisfrom their perspective, from the
WII FM, what's in it for me,what's in it for them, you know,
tell them why it matters to themtoday.
If you feel part of the room,you might be losing a little
bit, or you might just need likea better connection.
(03:32):
Uh, side note, it helps tosometimes go over and just
engage more in that area, maybeask a question over there, or
just go and stand over that thatpart of the room to help kind of
get that focus back a little bitand calm some maybe some side
shatter down.
If you're doing a QA or ifsomebody asks a question, very
important to repeat the questionout loud before you give the
(03:57):
answer.
Um, it helps everybodyunderstand because oftentimes we
think like, oh, oh, they heardor every everybody heard.
Plus, it also gives you as thespeaker, as the expert, the
person speaking, um, an extrabeat to take the question in to
re-engaging it the best possibleanswer.
Um, so just repeating it outloud and nice and clear so
(04:19):
everybody can hear it keepspeople focused a little bit
more.
Most importantly, though, asyou're doing this, if when you
have the ability to speak infront of people, your peers,
people in the industry here,other people, groups, boards, it
doesn't matter.
Have fun.
That's the most fun part.
I mean, for me, clubs are adultplaygrounds, right?
(04:40):
This is where people go to havefun.
And uh most of the time whenwe're speaking to people, it's
in this fun place, this funcapacity.
And when we get to talk aboutthings, they should be fun.
So have fun when you present,make sure it's not stressful,
don't put stress on yourself,make some friends.
And when you have the ability toshare and engage and give
(05:00):
information and inspire and givevalue, I think that's the most
important thing.
So usually most speaking thingsare about 60 minutes.
So for me, that is broken upinto 15-minute chunks or three
different topics, threedifferent things that I want to
highlight.
Um, you know, so sometimes it's,you know, there's a couple
(05:21):
standard topics that, you know,I have that I speak on.
But sometimes when you work withdifferent little groups and
chapters and little specificindustry things or speci uh
specific clubs or organizations,whatever it has you, sometimes
you really niche in andsometimes really focus in on a
couple more specific topics andthings and ideas and concepts
versus a little bit more broad.
But let's just assume for allthings, you know, we have 60
(05:43):
minutes that you have topresent.
To me, that is okay, that'sthree different topics and
easily broken down into15-minute chunks.
Meaning, so I'm gonna have aboutseven and a half minutes in the
beginning to open, reintroducemyself.
Uh, hopefully, if you'velistened to previous episodes, I
think it was episode uh 463, allabout how to have a good
(06:04):
introduction that you can giveor has or that someone can give
for you to bring you on stage.
Uh, but usually it's about sevenand a half minutes for me uh
that I usually buffer in thebeginning to kind of reintroduce
myself to the crowd, you know,kind of build rapport a tiny bit
and set expectations and let'sbeing lets uh them know what to
expect in um why they should payattention um to me for the next
(06:27):
hour or however much time youhave.
So that's about seven and a halfminutes.
Then you have about three15-minute chunks of talking
about your topic.
To me, that's you know, hey,three ideas, three concepts, and
then a nice story with that toaccompany each one.
So you can tell a story of whyit relates to them and what's
going on and you know, and whoyou're talking with.
(06:48):
Uh so you have the story and youhave the lesson and why it's a
takeaway and why it matters forwhat's going on.
And then from there you do thatthree times.
Then you have about aseven-minute wrap-up.
Uh, so usually seven and a halfminutes to kind of bring
everything full circle,reintroduce all the three
concepts that you introduced inthe beginning and then talked
about all the way through.
And then, you know, if sometimesthere might be a question or
(07:08):
two, but usually that's about asolid 60 minutes.
Then what's nice though is thenyou can take that same structure
and move that for different timeperiods.
So if you have 30 minutes, sonow you're gonna assume you can
do eight minutes on each topicand about six minutes, you know,
to kind of introduce and just gostraight into it.
The less time you have, the moretime you do up front to kind of
(07:31):
engage with the with youraudience and your peers.
You just kind of go straight ininto it.
The less time you have, the moretime, the more you can kind of
have that little bit of thatbuffer in the very, very
beginning.
Oh, and by the way, your talkdoesn't need to be those three
things, those three chunks.
Um, that just for me makes iteasy and consumable for the for
the audience.
Uh, but same thing if you wantto have something like the top
(07:54):
five ideas or the five things Ilearned, the ten takeaways, uh,
you then just do the mathaccordingly, and that and that's
your time chunk.
That's your that's how you breakit down.
And when you have a conferencemonitor, sometimes they can put
a timer on there, which willhelp keep you on time, which is
(08:15):
another key thing in our nexttopic is being respectful of the
time and the time that you haveon stage or in front of the
group and how it plays into theentire day.
I MC a lot, I do a lot ofdifferent things, and sometimes
flow and timing is veryimportant.
Sometimes there's a strictschedule for different whatever
(08:37):
reasons, other times it's alittle bit more flowy, but I see
too many people getting you puta microphone in their hand and
they just go and they just gooff.
They get so excited and they getthis power almost sometimes.
And listen, I've been guilty,I've I've I've gone over on
time.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
Uh, we we we we we all have,hopefully for like good reasons,
(08:58):
but um being uh being timelywith your allotted time on
stages of rock star move and tofinish on time and do that is
killer.
Um, and if you can adjust yourtime accordingly to help to help
with the entire thing.
So if you have the ability toadjust your time to put it on
(09:20):
track or put it back on track,be that rock star.
Don't people think sometimeslike I have the hour, I'm gonna
take the full hour.
Guess what?
Sometimes you're between themand food and everybody else went
over, and they just want to getout, you know.
So like read the room,understand, and you get more
kudos sometimes for being thatrock star.
(09:42):
Uh, because sometimes people canknow and feel and understand
when things go long and over,and you can like feel it in the
room.
And if you can, if if you'rethat last person, if you're
between some things, or if youjust know things are are off
track, if you can help putsomething back on track, whew,
that's a rock star power move.
That's why I like having storiesattached to the different ideas,
(10:03):
lessons, concepts, whatever haveyou, because you can adjust
those stories to be shorter orlonger.
So depending on how much timeyou have or need to fill, not
fill.
Uh, and sometimes it happenswhere it's not just short time,
sometimes you can fill moretime.
If other speakers go short orother things happen, you can put
things back on time.
Uh, so it's not just OH cuttingtime, sometimes it's also doing
(10:23):
more time, also.
And if you are nervous abouttime, you can also set a silent
alarm for yourself that canvibrate at a certain time.
And it can vibrate and itdoesn't have to just sound the
alarm.
You can just make it vibrate soonly you can feel it.
So you can, you know, have itstart as soon as you go on stage
(10:44):
and you know you have 60 minutesand you can have it go off at 50
minutes.
So then you know you have 10minutes left to wrap it up, and
then you can hit it, you know,hit the button in your in your
pants, or you know, usually ifit's in like your back pocket.
Um, girls, if you're wearing orif you're wearing a dress, uh,
so hopefully it has pockets, anduh you'll know it has pockets
(11:04):
because they'll tell you aboutit.
No.
Uh but um, you know, if you canhave uh those like little things
help, um, and you can also haveone at like five minutes before,
so it's like another like anadditional wrap-up.
Um, and that's just littlethings to do instead of just
like looking blatantly at yourwatch or being the person to ask
like how much time do I haveleft?
Um, so those are just littlelike tips and tricks there.
(11:25):
Now, sometimes if you are maybemore on the anxious side when
you're speaking, maybe it's newpeople who you don't know as
much.
An easy thing to kind of helpease that up is show up early,
obviously, which you shouldanyway, but make make new
friends.
To me, it's always just aboutmaking new friends and saying hi
and introducing myself to a fewpeople, just starting up a
(11:47):
couple conversations, making newfriends, and just kind of
helping make friends in theaudience so then it makes it a
little bit less awkward for you.
One thing I like to do before Igo on stage is you can't always
do it for different reasons, butI always try to crack a joke or
make somebody else laugh beforeI go right up on stage.
Uh to me, it just puts like amore natural smile on my face,
(12:08):
and I think it just makes for abetter first impression when you
first go on stage.
So that's also a nice little tipthat I try to do and try to tell
other people to do as well.
Now, another tip also is umattention first and then talk.
So I don't try to really startand fully go into it until I
have the attention of the room.
So I kind of know I can killsometimes upwards of a minute if
(12:32):
for some reason the attention isa little bit off.
Maybe, you know, for whateverreason there was there's some
movement going on or some snackswere being passed around.
Who knows, who knows?
But uh, you want to make sureyou have that full attention.
So being able to talk and kindof garner that attention, being
able to kill maybe sometimes 60seconds to a minute of just, and
sometimes it is just like a wordvomit almost, just to kind of
(12:53):
get get the attention.
Um, and at a worst, if youcan't, if it's a big important
thing and you really need theirsilence, you know, just stand
there, smile, breathe, and letthe room settle.
Um, also, if you stand there andhold your breath, that gets the
attention a lot quicker.
It fills the room withattention.
(13:14):
If you haven't ever tried that,try it because it works and it's
really, really weird.
Um, but and it is a little bitawkward.
Um, but yeah, so sometimes evenjust standing there for a beat
or two in silence, looking atthe room gets the attention
pretty quick and peopleunderstand the assignment.
Also make sure you do a mic andvoice check.
(13:35):
Always assume the mic isn't asloud as you think.
So speak maybe a little bitlouder than you think.
If it's a handheld mic, hold itcloser to your mouth.
Also, watch people.
Uh, sometimes you'll be seeingcues.
I've seen people um or I I do itas well for people.
If you can tell that themicrophone, if it's a handheld,
(13:56):
they start moving it down ortheir arm starts getting tired,
or for like whatever reason, itjust starts moving down further
and further because they're justgetting more comfortable on
stage.
So you have to sometimes remindthem to hold hold it up to their
closer to their to their mouth.
Um, so always do a mic check, ifpossible, ear set mics, lab mics
always work.
Uh, but always do a proper miccheck before you go on.
(14:17):
Uh if the room is empty, itmakes it a little bit easier and
less awkward.
When you're doing yourpresentation, slides help, but
they are not the show.
Pictures, big type, cleanimages, short phrases, one idea
per slide when you can.
If your slide looks like a menu,shorten it.
Um, please don't read yourparagraphs or your sentences
(14:39):
that are on your slides to theaudience.
The audience can see that.
Um, if anything, you're betteroff just putting a word, maybe.
So maybe it's a three sentencesor your three ideas.
So maybe you just have a keywordfrom that sentence and there's
three slides.
Uh, maybe it's a picture thathas to do with that keyword.
Um, because then it kind ofkeeps the people more focused on
(15:01):
you and they're not pre-readingand then they're getting ahead
of you.
So just don't read from yourslides, please.
Thank you.
One thing that's always a bighelp is the use of a confidence
monitor when when possible.
And all that is keywords for isan additional monitor that has
extra slides on it.
So usually that is the notesfeature, which is uh, if you
(15:23):
don't know that whether you useCanva or Google Slides or
PowerPoint, whatever, um Apple,I think it was the Apple
keynote.
Um, there's there's the there'sa notes portion where you could,
when you share your monitor orshare your screen, or sometimes
when you can give yourpresentation to um an A V team
(15:44):
or something, uh if there's aconfidence monitor, that's a
monitor that only you can seefrom the speaker's point of
view, you can put your notesthere.
So your slides are stillshowing, but you will see just
your notes and whatever you wantto have on there.
So that can be all of yoursentences, all of your
reminders, all of your keywords,uh things that are gonna help
you get through whatever youneed to get through to get that
(16:06):
slide, that idea, that conceptacross.
I like that a lot.
Um, even if it's not a big eventand it's a small event, and I
still like having one.
So I just use, I set up mylaptop to be the conference
monitor.
So you just have a longer HDMIcord, plug into your laptop,
plug that into the power, orplug that into the projector,
(16:27):
and then you can just uh movethe monitors around accordingly
and turn your laptop into yourconfidence monitor.
Then you just put that on thetable in front of where you're
speaking.
Uh, always try to place itwithin eye view of like forward
from the audience, meaning notto like the side.
You want to have it so you don'tbreak or you don't want to break
eye contact as much as possible.
Uh, however, you can look atthat while still maintaining uh
(16:49):
gazes with the audience.
We talked about a lot of things.
I word vomited a bit, I justbrain dumped.
I've just seen so much recently,I've been doing so much
recently, and I just want tohelp you all as much as possible
because I see a lot of peoplespeaking and doing some stuff.
I want to see people continue todo well.
So just always remember WIIFM,what's in it for me?
(17:10):
What's in it for your audience,the people that you're you're
spending time with, that you'regiving to, break it up into easy
chunks, especially if you're alittle bit newer, uh, or if
you're just thinking about howto put something together, if
you have a certain amount oftime, 60 minutes, how to chunk
that together.
There's all those just differenttips and tricks in there.
Mix and mingle, meet some newfriends before you go on, smile,
(17:30):
crack a joke before you go on,provide value, have fun.
And I'll leave you with myfavorite line.
And that is when you'representing, when you're
speaking, you don't have to telleverybody what you know.
You only have to tell them whatthey need to know.
You don't have to tell everybodywhat you know, you only have to
tell them what they need toknow.
(17:52):
Get in, provide value, have fun,give, give, give.
And do it as much as you can.
Because that's one skill that isnever gonna go away, that you
can always use and will alwaysbe valuable, and that is public
speaking up front in front ofpeople.
So I hope it helped.
Hope you got some takeaways,hope you got something, hope
you're kill it at your nextspeaking thing.
(18:14):
I'm your host, Andy Corby.
That's this episode.
Until next time, catch y'all onthe flippity flip.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club
Radio Show, where we give youthe scoop on all things private
golf and country clubs, frommastering leadership and
management, food and beverageexcellence, member engagement
secrets, board governance, andeverything in between, all while
keeping it fun and light.
Whether you're a club veteran,just getting your feet wet, or
somewhere in the middle, you arein the right place.
(00:20):
I'm your host, Denny Corby.
Welcome to the show.
In this episode, we are chattingabout speaking in front of
people, which, let's be honest,is most of us all the time, all
day, every day.
And I see more folks presentingin all capacities, in all
industries, not just ours.
And I just wanted to share sometips, some tricks, some little
(00:44):
moves that might help.
This is mostly beginner stuff,but some good all-around nuggets
in here when it comes topresenting and speaking and
giving presentations in front ofpeople.
I'm going to talk about tips andtricks.
I'm going to talk aboutstructure, how you can structure
a talk with different timeframes and how to edit that to
(01:05):
adjust in a lot to differenttime frames and just kind of
just brain dump a little bit ofsome of my little go-to hacks.
The number one thing is when youare presenting and you have the
ability and the opportunity andthe, you know, whether you're
paid, whether you're apresenter, a sponsor, a speaker,
it doesn't matter.
When you have the ability tospeak in front of a group, the
(01:25):
biggest thing is you should beable to and want to provide as
much value as you can, meaningthey should walk away with at
least one or two solid nuggets.
And it could be something smallor big, it doesn't matter.
But like there should be somelittle nuggets in there that if
people walk away, they might notlike you, but they might take
away something.
(01:46):
You know what I mean?
No.
But you want to engage, you wantto uh provide as much value and
give as much valuable content,data, whatever it is, that they
can walk away going, that wasnot a pitch fest.
So it's more especially for thevendors and partner suppliers.
But like if you actuallygenuinely have something to
sell, like do not sell it.
(02:07):
The product will sell itselfeventually.
The karma gods all come backfull, full circle.
So just provide as much valuableinformation as you can to the
audience that you are presentingto.
When you're presenting, whenyou're thinking about the group
that you are going to be infront of, whether it's your
peers, whether it's a CMAAevent, whether it's a board
(02:27):
event, whether it's, it could beanything, an end of the year, it
could be one of your teamevents.
One of the things you alwayshave to remember is when people
are there, when they're thereengaged in listening, they're
also thinking about theirfavorite radio station.
They're all tuned into W I I FM.
That was one of the things Isome I heard years ago is uh
(02:48):
everyone's always tuned intotheir favorite radio station,
W-I-I-F-M.
And that is what's in it for me.
Everyone's always thinking,what's in it for me.
So when you're thinking aboutyour topics, you want to keep it
nice and short and sweet andpalp, you know, palpable and
easy to consume.
You want to make it as easy aspossible, um, especially if it's
maybe a more complex topic.
But um, always want to thinkW-I-I-F-M, what's in it for my
(03:11):
listeners, what's in it for myaudience, what are they going to
get away from it?
And when you think about thisfrom their perspective, from the
WII FM, what's in it for me,what's in it for them, you know,
tell them why it matters to themtoday.
If you feel part of the room,you might be losing a little
bit, or you might just need likea better connection.
(03:32):
Uh, side note, it helps tosometimes go over and just
engage more in that area, maybeask a question over there, or
just go and stand over that thatpart of the room to help kind of
get that focus back a little bitand calm some maybe some side
shatter down.
If you're doing a QA or ifsomebody asks a question, very
important to repeat the questionout loud before you give the
(03:57):
answer.
Um, it helps everybodyunderstand because oftentimes we
think like, oh, oh, they heardor every everybody heard.
Plus, it also gives you as thespeaker, as the expert, the
person speaking, um, an extrabeat to take the question in to
re-engaging it the best possibleanswer.
Um, so just repeating it outloud and nice and clear so
(04:19):
everybody can hear it keepspeople focused a little bit
more.
Most importantly, though, asyou're doing this, if when you
have the ability to speak infront of people, your peers,
people in the industry here,other people, groups, boards, it
doesn't matter.
Have fun.
That's the most fun part.
I mean, for me, clubs are adultplaygrounds, right?
(04:40):
This is where people go to havefun.
And uh most of the time whenwe're speaking to people, it's
in this fun place, this funcapacity.
And when we get to talk aboutthings, they should be fun.
So have fun when you present,make sure it's not stressful,
don't put stress on yourself,make some friends.
And when you have the ability toshare and engage and give
(05:00):
information and inspire and givevalue, I think that's the most
important thing.
So usually most speaking thingsare about 60 minutes.
So for me, that is broken upinto 15-minute chunks or three
different topics, threedifferent things that I want to
highlight.
Um, you know, so sometimes it's,you know, there's a couple
(05:21):
standard topics that, you know,I have that I speak on.
But sometimes when you work withdifferent little groups and
chapters and little specificindustry things or speci uh
specific clubs or organizations,whatever it has you, sometimes
you really niche in andsometimes really focus in on a
couple more specific topics andthings and ideas and concepts
versus a little bit more broad.
But let's just assume for allthings, you know, we have 60
(05:43):
minutes that you have topresent.
To me, that is okay, that'sthree different topics and
easily broken down into15-minute chunks.
Meaning, so I'm gonna have aboutseven and a half minutes in the
beginning to open, reintroducemyself.
Uh, hopefully, if you'velistened to previous episodes, I
think it was episode uh 463, allabout how to have a good
(06:04):
introduction that you can giveor has or that someone can give
for you to bring you on stage.
Uh, but usually it's about sevenand a half minutes for me uh
that I usually buffer in thebeginning to kind of reintroduce
myself to the crowd, you know,kind of build rapport a tiny bit
and set expectations and let'sbeing lets uh them know what to
expect in um why they should payattention um to me for the next
(06:27):
hour or however much time youhave.
So that's about seven and a halfminutes.
Then you have about three15-minute chunks of talking
about your topic.
To me, that's you know, hey,three ideas, three concepts, and
then a nice story with that toaccompany each one.
So you can tell a story of whyit relates to them and what's
going on and you know, and whoyou're talking with.
(06:48):
Uh so you have the story and youhave the lesson and why it's a
takeaway and why it matters forwhat's going on.
And then from there you do thatthree times.
Then you have about aseven-minute wrap-up.
Uh, so usually seven and a halfminutes to kind of bring
everything full circle,reintroduce all the three
concepts that you introduced inthe beginning and then talked
about all the way through.
And then, you know, if sometimesthere might be a question or
(07:08):
two, but usually that's about asolid 60 minutes.
Then what's nice though is thenyou can take that same structure
and move that for different timeperiods.
So if you have 30 minutes, sonow you're gonna assume you can
do eight minutes on each topicand about six minutes, you know,
to kind of introduce and just gostraight into it.
The less time you have, the moretime you do up front to kind of
(07:31):
engage with the with youraudience and your peers.
You just kind of go straight ininto it.
The less time you have, the moretime, the more you can kind of
have that little bit of thatbuffer in the very, very
beginning.
Oh, and by the way, your talkdoesn't need to be those three
things, those three chunks.
Um, that just for me makes iteasy and consumable for the for
the audience.
Uh, but same thing if you wantto have something like the top
(07:54):
five ideas or the five things Ilearned, the ten takeaways, uh,
you then just do the mathaccordingly, and that and that's
your time chunk.
That's your that's how you breakit down.
And when you have a conferencemonitor, sometimes they can put
a timer on there, which willhelp keep you on time, which is
(08:15):
another key thing in our nexttopic is being respectful of the
time and the time that you haveon stage or in front of the
group and how it plays into theentire day.
I MC a lot, I do a lot ofdifferent things, and sometimes
flow and timing is veryimportant.
Sometimes there's a strictschedule for different whatever
(08:37):
reasons, other times it's alittle bit more flowy, but I see
too many people getting you puta microphone in their hand and
they just go and they just gooff.
They get so excited and they getthis power almost sometimes.
And listen, I've been guilty,I've I've I've gone over on
time.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
Uh, we we we we we all have,hopefully for like good reasons,
(08:58):
but um being uh being timelywith your allotted time on
stages of rock star move and tofinish on time and do that is
killer.
Um, and if you can adjust yourtime accordingly to help to help
with the entire thing.
So if you have the ability toadjust your time to put it on
(09:20):
track or put it back on track,be that rock star.
Don't people think sometimeslike I have the hour, I'm gonna
take the full hour.
Guess what?
Sometimes you're between themand food and everybody else went
over, and they just want to getout, you know.
So like read the room,understand, and you get more
kudos sometimes for being thatrock star.
(09:42):
Uh, because sometimes people canknow and feel and understand
when things go long and over,and you can like feel it in the
room.
And if you can, if if you'rethat last person, if you're
between some things, or if youjust know things are are off
track, if you can help putsomething back on track, whew,
that's a rock star power move.
That's why I like having storiesattached to the different ideas,
(10:03):
lessons, concepts, whatever haveyou, because you can adjust
those stories to be shorter orlonger.
So depending on how much timeyou have or need to fill, not
fill.
Uh, and sometimes it happenswhere it's not just short time,
sometimes you can fill moretime.
If other speakers go short orother things happen, you can put
things back on time.
Uh, so it's not just OH cuttingtime, sometimes it's also doing
(10:23):
more time, also.
And if you are nervous abouttime, you can also set a silent
alarm for yourself that canvibrate at a certain time.
And it can vibrate and itdoesn't have to just sound the
alarm.
You can just make it vibrate soonly you can feel it.
So you can, you know, have itstart as soon as you go on stage
(10:44):
and you know you have 60 minutesand you can have it go off at 50
minutes.
So then you know you have 10minutes left to wrap it up, and
then you can hit it, you know,hit the button in your in your
pants, or you know, usually ifit's in like your back pocket.
Um, girls, if you're wearing orif you're wearing a dress, uh,
so hopefully it has pockets, anduh you'll know it has pockets
(11:04):
because they'll tell you aboutit.
No.
Uh but um, you know, if you canhave uh those like little things
help, um, and you can also haveone at like five minutes before,
so it's like another like anadditional wrap-up.
Um, and that's just littlethings to do instead of just
like looking blatantly at yourwatch or being the person to ask
like how much time do I haveleft?
Um, so those are just littlelike tips and tricks there.
(11:25):
Now, sometimes if you are maybemore on the anxious side when
you're speaking, maybe it's newpeople who you don't know as
much.
An easy thing to kind of helpease that up is show up early,
obviously, which you shouldanyway, but make make new
friends.
To me, it's always just aboutmaking new friends and saying hi
and introducing myself to a fewpeople, just starting up a
(11:47):
couple conversations, making newfriends, and just kind of
helping make friends in theaudience so then it makes it a
little bit less awkward for you.
One thing I like to do before Igo on stage is you can't always
do it for different reasons, butI always try to crack a joke or
make somebody else laugh beforeI go right up on stage.
Uh to me, it just puts like amore natural smile on my face,
(12:08):
and I think it just makes for abetter first impression when you
first go on stage.
So that's also a nice little tipthat I try to do and try to tell
other people to do as well.
Now, another tip also is umattention first and then talk.
So I don't try to really startand fully go into it until I
have the attention of the room.
So I kind of know I can killsometimes upwards of a minute if
(12:32):
for some reason the attention isa little bit off.
Maybe, you know, for whateverreason there was there's some
movement going on or some snackswere being passed around.
Who knows, who knows?
But uh, you want to make sureyou have that full attention.
So being able to talk and kindof garner that attention, being
able to kill maybe sometimes 60seconds to a minute of just, and
sometimes it is just like a wordvomit almost, just to kind of
(12:53):
get get the attention.
Um, and at a worst, if youcan't, if it's a big important
thing and you really need theirsilence, you know, just stand
there, smile, breathe, and letthe room settle.
Um, also, if you stand there andhold your breath, that gets the
attention a lot quicker.
It fills the room withattention.
(13:14):
If you haven't ever tried that,try it because it works and it's
really, really weird.
Um, but and it is a little bitawkward.
Um, but yeah, so sometimes evenjust standing there for a beat
or two in silence, looking atthe room gets the attention
pretty quick and peopleunderstand the assignment.
Also make sure you do a mic andvoice check.
(13:35):
Always assume the mic isn't asloud as you think.
So speak maybe a little bitlouder than you think.
If it's a handheld mic, hold itcloser to your mouth.
Also, watch people.
Uh, sometimes you'll be seeingcues.
I've seen people um or I I do itas well for people.
If you can tell that themicrophone, if it's a handheld,
(13:56):
they start moving it down ortheir arm starts getting tired,
or for like whatever reason, itjust starts moving down further
and further because they're justgetting more comfortable on
stage.
So you have to sometimes remindthem to hold hold it up to their
closer to their to their mouth.
Um, so always do a mic check, ifpossible, ear set mics, lab mics
always work.
Uh, but always do a proper miccheck before you go on.
(14:17):
Uh if the room is empty, itmakes it a little bit easier and
less awkward.
When you're doing yourpresentation, slides help, but
they are not the show.
Pictures, big type, cleanimages, short phrases, one idea
per slide when you can.
If your slide looks like a menu,shorten it.
Um, please don't read yourparagraphs or your sentences
(14:39):
that are on your slides to theaudience.
The audience can see that.
Um, if anything, you're betteroff just putting a word, maybe.
So maybe it's a three sentencesor your three ideas.
So maybe you just have a keywordfrom that sentence and there's
three slides.
Uh, maybe it's a picture thathas to do with that keyword.
Um, because then it kind ofkeeps the people more focused on
(15:01):
you and they're not pre-readingand then they're getting ahead
of you.
So just don't read from yourslides, please.
Thank you.
One thing that's always a bighelp is the use of a confidence
monitor when when possible.
And all that is keywords for isan additional monitor that has
extra slides on it.
So usually that is the notesfeature, which is uh, if you
(15:23):
don't know that whether you useCanva or Google Slides or
PowerPoint, whatever, um Apple,I think it was the Apple
keynote.
Um, there's there's the there'sa notes portion where you could,
when you share your monitor orshare your screen, or sometimes
when you can give yourpresentation to um an A V team
(15:44):
or something, uh if there's aconfidence monitor, that's a
monitor that only you can seefrom the speaker's point of
view, you can put your notesthere.
So your slides are stillshowing, but you will see just
your notes and whatever you wantto have on there.
So that can be all of yoursentences, all of your
reminders, all of your keywords,uh things that are gonna help
you get through whatever youneed to get through to get that
(16:06):
slide, that idea, that conceptacross.
I like that a lot.
Um, even if it's not a big eventand it's a small event, and I
still like having one.
So I just use, I set up mylaptop to be the conference
monitor.
So you just have a longer HDMIcord, plug into your laptop,
plug that into the power, orplug that into the projector,
(16:27):
and then you can just uh movethe monitors around accordingly
and turn your laptop into yourconfidence monitor.
Then you just put that on thetable in front of where you're
speaking.
Uh, always try to place itwithin eye view of like forward
from the audience, meaning notto like the side.
You want to have it so you don'tbreak or you don't want to break
eye contact as much as possible.
Uh, however, you can look atthat while still maintaining uh
(16:49):
gazes with the audience.
We talked about a lot of things.
I word vomited a bit, I justbrain dumped.
I've just seen so much recently,I've been doing so much
recently, and I just want tohelp you all as much as possible
because I see a lot of peoplespeaking and doing some stuff.
I want to see people continue todo well.
So just always remember WIIFM,what's in it for me?
(17:10):
What's in it for your audience,the people that you're you're
spending time with, that you'regiving to, break it up into easy
chunks, especially if you're alittle bit newer, uh, or if
you're just thinking about howto put something together, if
you have a certain amount oftime, 60 minutes, how to chunk
that together.
There's all those just differenttips and tricks in there.
Mix and mingle, meet some newfriends before you go on, smile,
(17:30):
crack a joke before you go on,provide value, have fun.
And I'll leave you with myfavorite line.
And that is when you'representing, when you're
speaking, you don't have to telleverybody what you know.
You only have to tell them whatthey need to know.
You don't have to tell everybodywhat you know, you only have to
tell them what they need toknow.
(17:52):
Get in, provide value, have fun,give, give, give.
And do it as much as you can.
Because that's one skill that isnever gonna go away, that you
can always use and will alwaysbe valuable, and that is public
speaking up front in front ofpeople.
So I hope it helped.
Hope you got some takeaways,hope you got something, hope
you're kill it at your nextspeaking thing.
(18:14):
I'm your host, Andy Corby.
That's this episode.
Until next time, catch y'all onthe flippity flip.
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