March 5, 2025 • 22 mins
“All the world is a stage” is very true, especially in the business world. By becoming an engaging presenter you can succeed from sales meetings to training presentations to speeches. I discuss how to do that in this episode.
Today, we have a game-changer in the world of communication—David D. Doerrier. With a background spanning radio broadcasting, stage acting, corporate training, and even playing Santa Claus, David specializes in helping subject matter experts, business leaders, and sales professionals transform their technical expertise into engaging, high-impact presentations.
He had to learn how to get his information to stick with his audiences, which he has done successfully.
David also comes from being very shy and introverted to becoming comfortable and gregarious on stage. He discovered that one way to do that is by making it more about the audience and less about him. That’s a perspective shift from many speakers’ viewpoints.
It’s Not About You; It IS All About Your Audience
The first thing you have to do is start with your objectives in mind. Let’s use a training session as an example. Ask yourself, “At the end of this training session what are the things that my audience needs to walk away with and understand better?” Not only understanding it better but at what level do they need to understand it? Do they need to be an expert when they leave the training? Do they just need to have some knowledge when they leave the training?
So first it’s understanding what the objectives are that you need to achieve. So, now again, that’s all about them. It has nothing to do with you or your background or what you think you need to teach. It’s first understanding what it is that they need and what it is that they want to get out of your training.
Your “Stage” Could be Anywhere
Many people think they don’t “do” any public speaking because they don’t get up in front of a room on a stage. When David says “engage from any stage” what he means by “any stage” is it could be anywhere. It could be on a Zoom call, on a podcast, it could be a sales call, it could be a workshop, a physical stage in front of a room full of people and more.
What platform or what process are you using to communicate with your audience? Are you mentoring someone? Are you training someone? Are you selling to people? The techniques that David talks about can be used in any of those situations, when you’re talking to one person or hundreds of people.
Sales Blends with Training
A caveat here is that David is not a sales coach. However, what he does applies to sales people to connect better with their audiences. The processes that he has come from his background as an instructional designer. How can you create material that is going to stick in the mind of your audience?
The more he worked with it, the more he saw that anybody (including salespeople) could benefit from those types of principles. In some ways there is an overlap with training and sales. Because as a salesperson you must educate your audience enough for them to say “Yes!” to purchasing your offering. Whereas if you’re training a group of people you’ve got to educate them enough, so they say “Okay, I see how I can use these new strategies”.
The sales process is first understanding your audience, the same thing as with training. You first must understand who your audience is. What is their learning style? What is their buying style? And then adjusting to that scenario.
Preparing for Your Presentations
It’s a mix of interviews before you give the presentation and figuring it out on the fly during your presentation. There are questionnaires that can go out beforehand to help you evaluate your audience. Let’s use a training example, certainly in that situation. You can reach out to the organizer and get an idea of the make-up of the group and try to get as much information about them as possible beforehand. In a sales situation,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Idea Climbing podcast.
Today, I'm discussing how to engage with any
audience from any stage
in person or virtually.
My guest is David Doria,
a game changer in the world of communication.
David, with a background spanning radio broadcasting,
stage acting, corporate training, and even playing Santa
Claus,
(00:21):
specializes in helping subject matter experts, business leaders,
and sales professionals
transform their technical expertise into engaging, high impact
presentations. He's not just about talking. He's about
connecting, influencing, and driving real results.
If you've ever struggled to make your message
land with clarity and confidence, you're in for
a treat.
(00:42):
We dive into topics such as how to
successfully prepare for presentations,
how to deal with anxiety when you're on
your stage,
the ABCs of the foundation you need to
build to be successful at public speaking, and
more golden nuggets of advice.
You're gonna love this show.
(01:04):
David, thank you for joining me for the
Idea Climbing podcast. I appreciate you making the
time.
Oh, thank you so much. Mark, I've been
looking forward to this. It was like last
year sometime when we first set this up,
and finally, we're here. So thank goodness. We
made it a year later.
Nice. And we're gonna talk about how to
engage any audience from any stage. Before we
(01:24):
get into some of the tactics and strategies,
I would love to know, as far as
engaging with audiences,
how did you get so good at it
that you now teach it at the level
you do? What's your story with learning about
engaging audiences?
You know, that's a great question. The,
I guess it's because I had to learn
it myself. I come from,
(01:47):
my background is kind of varied. It started
with military. I have a radio background, theater
background.
But while I was in the military, I
ended up in a training unit, and training
and development became a part of my life
for the past thirty something years.
And facilitating
on a regular basis,
I learned my tagline talking and telling ain't
(02:08):
training or selling.
So I learned that there was,
that I had to learn
a new way of getting my audience
to get the to get the information to
stick more.
So I I also come from being very
shy and introverted
and
learning how to,
(02:29):
be more comfortable on stage. And the one
way to do that is making it more
about the audience and less about me. So
that's all part of that how I had
to create that engagement.
That's interesting. How do you make it how
do you start to make it more about
the audience and less about you? Well, number
one is starting with what are the objectives
that when we get to the end of
(02:50):
let's use a training session as an example,
that at the end of this training session,
what are the things that this audience needs
to
walk away with understanding better?
Not only understanding it better, but at what
level do they need to understand it? Do
they need to be an expert when they
leave here? Do they have to have just
some knowledge when they leave here? So first
(03:13):
understanding
what are the objectives that we need to
hit.
So now again, that's all about them. It's
not has nothing to do with me or
my background, and I'm gonna teach this, and
I think they need this. It's first understanding
what is it that they need and what
is it that they want.
Well, one thing I like that you had
brought up that's, I think, tangential to to
(03:35):
this is knowing what the stage is.
I mean, you have to know the audience,
but can you talk about that? Because so
many people, they think it always means a
literal stage and only a literal stage. What
do you mean when you say you have
to know what the stage is?
I'm glad you brought that up, Mark. That
is a great question because some when people
hear that that,
maybe they've heard that I'm a public speaking
(03:56):
coach. Well, oh, oh, I don't do any
public speaking because I don't get up in
front of a stage and I don't or
get up on a stage and speak in
front of a a large group of audience.
Now what I say, I, engage from any
stage. And what I mean by any stage,
stage could be this right here, one on
one, have a podcast. It could be a
(04:17):
sales call. It could be a workshop. All
of these things could be virtual. It's what
platform or what
what process are you using to communicate to
your audience? Are you mentoring someone? Are you
training someone? Are you selling to people?
The techniques that I talk about, these engagement
techniques can be used in any of those
(04:39):
situations when you're talking to one or thousands.
So how about let's let's take the selling
scenario. Could you dive into that, unpack that
a little bit more? What do you do
to prepare? What does it look like when
you engage from that stage?
Okay. So good. I'm glad they brought that
up about the selling. Now let me, caveat
here is that I am not a sales
(05:00):
coach. Mhmm. However,
what I do provide to sales
folks
is a process on how to connect better
to the audience. What I found
let let me start here. These processes that
I have, the eight principles of engagement,
they come from my background as an instructional
designer. How can you create material that is
(05:21):
gonna stick in the mind of your audience?
And the more I worked with it, the
more I, the more I saw that anybody,
including salespeople,
can benefit from from these types of principles.
I think that in some ways training and
sales, there is an overlap there because as
a salesperson, I feel I have to educate
(05:42):
my audience enough for them to say yes.
Whereas
if I'm training a group of people, I've
got to educate them enough so they say,
okay. I'll use this new process.
So
back to your question. You know, the the
sales process is first understanding
your audience. The same thing with, with training.
(06:04):
I first have to understand
who's my audience. What is their learning style?
What is their buying style?
And then
adjusting
to that to that scenario.
So how do you learn their buying their
buying style, their learning style? Does it is
it
interviews before you give the presentation? I use
(06:24):
air quotes intentionally. How do you know they're
buying and learning style, or do you figure
it out kind of on the fly during
a presentation?
All of the all of the above. Now
there are,
questionnaires that can go out beforehand to where
you can evaluate
the individual. Now,
I'm using let's use a training example. Certainly
in that situation, I can reach out to
(06:46):
the organizer and get an idea of the
the the makeup of the group and try
to get as much information about that individual
or that group as possible beforehand. In a
sales situation,
just like in a training situation, I may
have to ask questions right up front. You
know, what brings you in today? What is
it about this product that that attracted you?
(07:07):
A gazillion different questions that are gonna be
appropriate to to what you're selling. But I
do the same thing in training. I ask
a lot of questions upfront.
One question I ask upfront is why are
we here?
What purpose?
What objective
are we here to or what problem are
we here to solve? All of you received
an email of some sort or some sort
(07:29):
of correspondence
that
attracted you enough that said, okay, I'll show
up.
So now that you showed up, what was
it that you read that said, I gotta
show up?
Well, let's take a few steps back and
look at a traditional presentation.
Chicken and the egg. Where how do you
what are the components of a good presentation
(07:50):
if you have to start planning something without
being able to pull the audience? And it's
in a traditional sense of being on stage.
Wow. Okay. Alright. Great scenario there. So you're,
so you you've not been able to poll
the audience, but you've been invited to speak.
So you've been able to get some information
about
where you're speaking,
(08:11):
why why do you want me, what to
speak about. So you certainly
have those foundational skills of what they want
you to teach.
Then then
creating,
you know, certainly creating those objectives.
What you know, based on your experience
in my field,
these are the types of questions that I
(08:32):
get a lot.
So starting in that,
area. But
I would be
flexible enough,
and this takes practice as a facilitator,
be flexible enough that when I ask these
questions upfront to gauge my audience,
I may have to take a different direction,
or a different way, or some different streets
(08:54):
to get to that ultimate objective.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. You so you have to be flexible
to work within the audience's feedback, reactions, whatever
that might be that that you're getting in
the room. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you don't
wanna deviate from your main objective,
but
based on
maybe I came into this thinking that everybody
(09:15):
in my audience were novices.
And now that I've polled them, I can
see now everybody in my audience is already
an expert. Mhmm. So maybe I can use
a different type of terminology.
What do you do to define an objective
beforehand as far as sales, training, because we
were talking about those.
What are some examples of the objectives for
(09:36):
sales and or for training you set that
you like to set ahead of time? How
do you set those?
Again, great. So let's take a let's take
a look at the training situation. So in
training, it's going to be what knowledge do
I want the audience
to
to to leave with? What is it that
I want them to be impacted with? What
(09:57):
is it that I want them to remember
and never forget? And then understanding what level,
what proficiency
level I wanna keep get them at.
So, yes, starting with in in a training
in a sales, I would think that the
ultimate objective is get them to buy. Mhmm.
(10:18):
But understanding that it may take a certain
path to get there. First,
understanding,
I'm starting to get lost in the middle
of this, but I hope I'm answering your
question. Yeah.
And one thing another thing we had spoken
about that I think a lot of people's
sales training, traditional stage, speaking to an audience
(10:41):
is anxiety.
And you would mention that your audience ultimately
wants you to win or to be successful.
That's a tweak that a lot of people
don't think about. They're just worried about, I'm
so anxious. How do I get rid of
the butterflies of nervousness?
Why do you unpack that a little bit.
What do you mean your audience wants you
to be successful?
(11:02):
Well, think of yourself as, if you are
observing
someone up on the stage,
I would think in most cases, I know
for myself
that I'm walking in and I I have
come to this
conference and I wanna listen to this speaker
because I'm interested in what they're going to
speak about based on the synopsis that I'm
(11:23):
reading. So I wanna learn about this thing.
I want them to be successful because I
wanna leave here with more of this information.
So now if if if that anxiety now
has overtaken
that individual and now that all I hear
is umms and ahs and this and that
and that's gonna take away from me
(11:44):
absorbing that information.
So, you know, all of us have anxiety.
If you're not nervous,
you're not trying hard enough.
What but I don't wanna like I don't
wanna use the word nervousness. It's not nervousness.
It's excitement.
I am excited
to get up in front of this audience
today and share with you. Yeah. I'm nervous.
(12:05):
Yeah. I I can feel the butterflies.
Here's where, you know, there's a lot of
different techniques that come into place.
Some of that mindset.
Also physical.
I like to work out a little bit
beforehand, jump up and down, use some yoga,
stretch my face, and just
it's like an athlete. An athlete is not
(12:27):
gonna go right from their house
with their uniform on, get into the car,
and then go right onto the playing field.
There's going to be some preparation,
and we as speakers have to do the
same thing.
So for that preparation, talk a little bit
more about that. What is that? Is it
mantras? Is it self talk? Is it breathing
exercises? Is it a combination of them? Because
(12:47):
so many people do get that anxiousness.
You know, all it's it's all of the
above. It's finding what's gonna work best for
you. I mentioned for myself, it's stretching.
It's jumping up and down, finding us a
quiet place that if I'm at a conference,
finding finding a quiet room, the men's room
or something, stretching. But it's also that practice.
It's also about building that foundation.
(13:09):
Public speaking is
it's it's it's it's an art,
and
everybody can master it. Everybody can master it,
but you have to start with first understanding
what are all of those foundational
skills, the
ABCs
of speaking in public that and and then
continuously
(13:29):
work on them just like when we first
learned how to ride a bicycle.
So go on about that. I love that.
What are the some some of the ABCs,
the foundations that you need to develop in
public speaking? Well, ABC, that stands for a
for agenda, b for beliefs, and c for
core communication skills.
So a is is, first, understanding your agenda.
(13:51):
And we we talk about all of the
things that fit into that agenda. Who, what,
where, when, why, and how. Who are you
speaking to? Why are you speaking? When are
you speaking? What are you speaking about? How
are you gonna be speaking to these people?
And a gazillion other questions that all go
into that first understanding that agenda.
The objective of understanding the ABCs is to
(14:15):
eliminate question marks.
Because the more question marks we have in
in our heads when we get up there
to speak, the more that it brings allows
to bring in anxieties.
For example,
will there be a microphone?
Is there a stage? How many people are
gonna be in the room? All of that
basic stuff. What does the audience wanna hear?
(14:37):
If all of those who, what, where, when,
why, and how questions have been answered beforehand,
we start eliminating a lot of those question
marks, which now puts us a lot more
in control. So first is the agenda.
The, And then what what comes after that?
That b is for the beliefs. Now, we
haven't talked about the core communication skills. There's
(14:59):
five of those. We'll get to those in
a minute. All of these are important, but
the b, belief
is a little is a notch or two
above the others. And this is our own
self talk,
believing that we're gonna do a good job.
I know I've done it. I know I
know I did it a lot when I
first started that I'm I'm gonna fail. I
did a lot of theater, a lot of
(15:20):
community theater. Those voices in my head and
so on and telling me I'm not I'm
I'm I'm gonna fail. I'm gonna lose a
line in this.
You know, it's it's it's it takes practice,
but this is where understanding that your audience
wants you to be successful.
Understanding that it's okay to make a mistake.
It's okay to get lost.
(15:41):
It's but it's all about how do you
respond to that? How do you rebound from
that mistake where you just lose it for
a minute or two, and then you get
back on track, but you're prepared.
So that's
How do you rebound? What do you do
to to rebound when you think, oh my
god. I just lost I lost my train
of thought.
(16:02):
Number one, you don't announce it.
Uh-oh. Here we go again, everybody. I'm sorry.
I've made a mistake. Hold on a minute.
Let me hear.
No.
You just stop.
You pause for a moment.
Hopefully you've got your notes.
And if you're working with me, I'm always
telling you, you got to have a backup,
(16:22):
you know? Okay. I got it all on
my slides. Well, what happens if the computer
dies?
So you got to have those backups
and just be comfortable enough
and and and know the material enough that
you're okay. It's okay.
It's okay.
And and and if you say something, you
know, you say, okay, wait a minute. Hold
on, everybody. Let me make sure, I'm I'm
(16:42):
where I need to be.
You know, that's one way. You could also
camouflage it and maybe ask a question to
the group. Okay, everybody. Since we just learned,
why the audience is important
and beliefs, we've talked about beliefs, What do
you what questions do you have about any
of that? I could throw it back on
my audience,
and and they wouldn't know that I lost
it at all.
(17:04):
So how I'm assuming c stands for core
communication skills. Would that be right? Yes. Core
communication skills and these there's five of these.
And and,
I've got to always remember them.
Bevlin, b e v
l n, b e v l n, b
for breathing.
(17:25):
We one of, you know, many ways of
of controlling our body and
building that confidence within ourselves
is being able to breathe properly. I would
imagine
that when you get nervous, you've been speaking
for a long time. When you were in
the beginning well, you mentioned to me something
about that first time you were on that
(17:47):
radio show.
That first time. So,
yes, what happened?
Just froze. Totally froze. You weren't breathing.
Mm-mm. So so if you were able to
breathe, yes, okay, you'd still be a little
nervous, I would imagine. But at least you
were able to breathe, they wouldn't have had
to drag you out of the studio.
(18:07):
Exactly. Exactly. So so breathing helps with now
if I'm breathing properly, breathing from the diaphragm,
this is also helping with projecting the voice.
It's also helping to make because usually when
we're when we're not breathing or if we're
tight and nervous, it's all it's all up
here in the chest.
It's and and and and that's that's gonna
(18:28):
help to make our arms a little bit
looser. So moving,
the the body a little bit will help
to loosen that.
So there's some other core. Oh, okay. You
were talking about the breathing. So breathing to
me is the core. So the next is
eye contact.
This is a biggie. Well, it's a biggie
anywhere. You need to be looking at your
(18:49):
audience because that's one of many ways of
developing that credibility
with your audience. But here in Zoom world,
it's looking it's getting used to looking directly
into that camera. Many people are looking over
here. Maybe all the faces
are on this other screen over here, or
I'm looking at my PowerPoint because that's over
here. But you can see how
(19:11):
it's not making it I'm not connecting with
you by not looking at my audience, and
and that's the the the one, the cheapest,
easiest tool to use in Zoom is to
look right into that camera, and it takes
practice.
So that's the eyes. V is the voice.
The next the third one is the voice,
the projection of the voice. I can't tell
(19:32):
you how many times I've listened to people
during networking events,
and they're talking about their own business. And
they're talking,
well, my business is all about helping with
presentation skills and and, you know, well, you
know, that's the type of thing. They don't
have any energy at all. This is your
business.
This is what you love. How am I
(19:53):
gonna refer people to you
if this is how you act? I don't
wanna refer people to a guy that just
can't that is not excited about his own
business. So v is for voice and vocal
variety.
B, l l l l is the,
let's come back to the, oh, l is
listening. Listening. Yes. You've got to listen to
(20:16):
your audience,
but it's not only listening with your ears,
you're also listening to your audience with your
eyes.
So if everybody's head falls down on the
table, you know, I may it may kinda
tell me something something ain't working right. So
I gotta kinda mix it up a little
bit. So l is listening, but listening also
comes in in the agenda
(20:37):
as well as listening upfront. Who's the audience?
Who, what, where, when, why, and how? So
that's listening. And
n, nonverbals.
93
of our message comes from nonverbals.
There's a lot of stuff that can fall
into that nonverbal bucket. Your PowerPoint is a
nonverbal.
What you wear. Some things are out of
(20:59):
your control, like the room itself. Oh, it's
too cold in here. The lunch was horrible.
So those are also nonverbals, and some may
be out of your control. So the a
is for agenda. The b for beliefs. The
five core communication skills, breathe,
eyes,
voice,
listening,
nonverbals.
This has been excellent. We have covered a
(21:21):
lot of ground in a really short period
of time. When it comes to engaging any
audience from any stage,
and someone says, we covered a lot and
I get it. If you were to say,
you know what? When it comes down to
that engagement, at least do above all, at
least do this one thing. At least start
here and do this. What would you say
that one thing to at least to do
(21:41):
better than the rest would be?
Make it more about your audience than yourself.
Your experiences,
your education,
all of these things are important.
But
it's it's it's about the the the the
WIFM. What's in it for me? Your audience
is thinking, okay, fine. You you've have all
of these great these these great experiences, but
(22:04):
how does that help me? So making it
more about your audience than about yourself.
This has been excellent. If people wanna find
you online, where's the best place or places
to go? Best place well, places, one is
my website, present your way to success.com,
or you can find me on LinkedIn, David
Doria.
And,
(22:25):
reach out. Let me know that you heard
it here, and I I I'll, I I
I'll send you a free copy of my
book on the eight principles
of engagement.
Thank you so much. This has been excellent,
sir. Thank you.
And scene.
Thank you for joining us today. I hope
you enjoyed the episode. I also hope that
(22:46):
you'll subscribe to the Idea Climbing podcast and
rate us on iTunes.
Visit ideaclimbing.com
to learn more about Idea Climbing and hear
more episodes about mentoring,
marketing, and big ideas.
Welcome to the Idea Climbing podcast.
Today, I'm discussing how to engage with any
audience from any stage
in person or virtually.
My guest is David Doria,
a game changer in the world of communication.
David, with a background spanning radio broadcasting,
stage acting, corporate training, and even playing Santa
Claus,
(00:21):
specializes in helping subject matter experts, business leaders,
and sales professionals
transform their technical expertise into engaging, high impact
presentations. He's not just about talking. He's about
connecting, influencing, and driving real results.
If you've ever struggled to make your message
land with clarity and confidence, you're in for
a treat.
(00:42):
We dive into topics such as how to
successfully prepare for presentations,
how to deal with anxiety when you're on
your stage,
the ABCs of the foundation you need to
build to be successful at public speaking, and
more golden nuggets of advice.
You're gonna love this show.
(01:04):
David, thank you for joining me for the
Idea Climbing podcast. I appreciate you making the
time.
Oh, thank you so much. Mark, I've been
looking forward to this. It was like last
year sometime when we first set this up,
and finally, we're here. So thank goodness. We
made it a year later.
Nice. And we're gonna talk about how to
engage any audience from any stage. Before we
(01:24):
get into some of the tactics and strategies,
I would love to know, as far as
engaging with audiences,
how did you get so good at it
that you now teach it at the level
you do? What's your story with learning about
engaging audiences?
You know, that's a great question. The,
I guess it's because I had to learn
it myself. I come from,
(01:47):
my background is kind of varied. It started
with military. I have a radio background, theater
background.
But while I was in the military, I
ended up in a training unit, and training
and development became a part of my life
for the past thirty something years.
And facilitating
on a regular basis,
I learned my tagline talking and telling ain't
(02:08):
training or selling.
So I learned that there was,
that I had to learn
a new way of getting my audience
to get the to get the information to
stick more.
So I I also come from being very
shy and introverted
and
learning how to,
(02:29):
be more comfortable on stage. And the one
way to do that is making it more
about the audience and less about me. So
that's all part of that how I had
to create that engagement.
That's interesting. How do you make it how
do you start to make it more about
the audience and less about you? Well, number
one is starting with what are the objectives
that when we get to the end of
(02:50):
let's use a training session as an example,
that at the end of this training session,
what are the things that this audience needs
to
walk away with understanding better?
Not only understanding it better, but at what
level do they need to understand it? Do
they need to be an expert when they
leave here? Do they have to have just
some knowledge when they leave here? So first
(03:13):
understanding
what are the objectives that we need to
hit.
So now again, that's all about them. It's
not has nothing to do with me or
my background, and I'm gonna teach this, and
I think they need this. It's first understanding
what is it that they need and what
is it that they want.
Well, one thing I like that you had
brought up that's, I think, tangential to to
(03:35):
this is knowing what the stage is.
I mean, you have to know the audience,
but can you talk about that? Because so
many people, they think it always means a
literal stage and only a literal stage. What
do you mean when you say you have
to know what the stage is?
I'm glad you brought that up, Mark. That
is a great question because some when people
hear that that,
maybe they've heard that I'm a public speaking
(03:56):
coach. Well, oh, oh, I don't do any
public speaking because I don't get up in
front of a stage and I don't or
get up on a stage and speak in
front of a a large group of audience.
Now what I say, I, engage from any
stage. And what I mean by any stage,
stage could be this right here, one on
one, have a podcast. It could be a
(04:17):
sales call. It could be a workshop. All
of these things could be virtual. It's what
platform or what
what process are you using to communicate to
your audience? Are you mentoring someone? Are you
training someone? Are you selling to people?
The techniques that I talk about, these engagement
techniques can be used in any of those
(04:39):
situations when you're talking to one or thousands.
So how about let's let's take the selling
scenario. Could you dive into that, unpack that
a little bit more? What do you do
to prepare? What does it look like when
you engage from that stage?
Okay. So good. I'm glad they brought that
up about the selling. Now let me, caveat
here is that I am not a sales
(05:00):
coach. Mhmm. However,
what I do provide to sales
folks
is a process on how to connect better
to the audience. What I found
let let me start here. These processes that
I have, the eight principles of engagement,
they come from my background as an instructional
designer. How can you create material that is
(05:21):
gonna stick in the mind of your audience?
And the more I worked with it, the
more I, the more I saw that anybody,
including salespeople,
can benefit from from these types of principles.
I think that in some ways training and
sales, there is an overlap there because as
a salesperson, I feel I have to educate
(05:42):
my audience enough for them to say yes.
Whereas
if I'm training a group of people, I've
got to educate them enough so they say,
okay. I'll use this new process.
So
back to your question. You know, the the
sales process is first understanding
your audience. The same thing with, with training.
(06:04):
I first have to understand
who's my audience. What is their learning style?
What is their buying style?
And then
adjusting
to that to that scenario.
So how do you learn their buying their
buying style, their learning style? Does it is
it
interviews before you give the presentation? I use
(06:24):
air quotes intentionally. How do you know they're
buying and learning style, or do you figure
it out kind of on the fly during
a presentation?
All of the all of the above. Now
there are,
questionnaires that can go out beforehand to where
you can evaluate
the individual. Now,
I'm using let's use a training example. Certainly
in that situation, I can reach out to
(06:46):
the organizer and get an idea of the
the the makeup of the group and try
to get as much information about that individual
or that group as possible beforehand. In a
sales situation,
just like in a training situation, I may
have to ask questions right up front. You
know, what brings you in today? What is
it about this product that that attracted you?
(07:07):
A gazillion different questions that are gonna be
appropriate to to what you're selling. But I
do the same thing in training. I ask
a lot of questions upfront.
One question I ask upfront is why are
we here?
What purpose?
What objective
are we here to or what problem are
we here to solve? All of you received
an email of some sort or some sort
(07:29):
of correspondence
that
attracted you enough that said, okay, I'll show
up.
So now that you showed up, what was
it that you read that said, I gotta
show up?
Well, let's take a few steps back and
look at a traditional presentation.
Chicken and the egg. Where how do you
what are the components of a good presentation
(07:50):
if you have to start planning something without
being able to pull the audience? And it's
in a traditional sense of being on stage.
Wow. Okay. Alright. Great scenario there. So you're,
so you you've not been able to poll
the audience, but you've been invited to speak.
So you've been able to get some information
about
where you're speaking,
(08:11):
why why do you want me, what to
speak about. So you certainly
have those foundational skills of what they want
you to teach.
Then then
creating,
you know, certainly creating those objectives.
What you know, based on your experience
in my field,
these are the types of questions that I
(08:32):
get a lot.
So starting in that,
area. But
I would be
flexible enough,
and this takes practice as a facilitator,
be flexible enough that when I ask these
questions upfront to gauge my audience,
I may have to take a different direction,
or a different way, or some different streets
(08:54):
to get to that ultimate objective.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. You so you have to be flexible
to work within the audience's feedback, reactions, whatever
that might be that that you're getting in
the room. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you don't
wanna deviate from your main objective,
but
based on
maybe I came into this thinking that everybody
(09:15):
in my audience were novices.
And now that I've polled them, I can
see now everybody in my audience is already
an expert. Mhmm. So maybe I can use
a different type of terminology.
What do you do to define an objective
beforehand as far as sales, training, because we
were talking about those.
What are some examples of the objectives for
(09:36):
sales and or for training you set that
you like to set ahead of time? How
do you set those?
Again, great. So let's take a let's take
a look at the training situation. So in
training, it's going to be what knowledge do
I want the audience
to
to to leave with? What is it that
I want them to be impacted with? What
(09:57):
is it that I want them to remember
and never forget? And then understanding what level,
what proficiency
level I wanna keep get them at.
So, yes, starting with in in a training
in a sales, I would think that the
ultimate objective is get them to buy. Mhmm.
(10:18):
But understanding that it may take a certain
path to get there. First,
understanding,
I'm starting to get lost in the middle
of this, but I hope I'm answering your
question. Yeah.
And one thing another thing we had spoken
about that I think a lot of people's
sales training, traditional stage, speaking to an audience
(10:41):
is anxiety.
And you would mention that your audience ultimately
wants you to win or to be successful.
That's a tweak that a lot of people
don't think about. They're just worried about, I'm
so anxious. How do I get rid of
the butterflies of nervousness?
Why do you unpack that a little bit.
What do you mean your audience wants you
to be successful?
(11:02):
Well, think of yourself as, if you are
observing
someone up on the stage,
I would think in most cases, I know
for myself
that I'm walking in and I I have
come to this
conference and I wanna listen to this speaker
because I'm interested in what they're going to
speak about based on the synopsis that I'm
(11:23):
reading. So I wanna learn about this thing.
I want them to be successful because I
wanna leave here with more of this information.
So now if if if that anxiety now
has overtaken
that individual and now that all I hear
is umms and ahs and this and that
and that's gonna take away from me
(11:44):
absorbing that information.
So, you know, all of us have anxiety.
If you're not nervous,
you're not trying hard enough.
What but I don't wanna like I don't
wanna use the word nervousness. It's not nervousness.
It's excitement.
I am excited
to get up in front of this audience
today and share with you. Yeah. I'm nervous.
(12:05):
Yeah. I I can feel the butterflies.
Here's where, you know, there's a lot of
different techniques that come into place.
Some of that mindset.
Also physical.
I like to work out a little bit
beforehand, jump up and down, use some yoga,
stretch my face, and just
it's like an athlete. An athlete is not
(12:27):
gonna go right from their house
with their uniform on, get into the car,
and then go right onto the playing field.
There's going to be some preparation,
and we as speakers have to do the
same thing.
So for that preparation, talk a little bit
more about that. What is that? Is it
mantras? Is it self talk? Is it breathing
exercises? Is it a combination of them? Because
(12:47):
so many people do get that anxiousness.
You know, all it's it's all of the
above. It's finding what's gonna work best for
you. I mentioned for myself, it's stretching.
It's jumping up and down, finding us a
quiet place that if I'm at a conference,
finding finding a quiet room, the men's room
or something, stretching. But it's also that practice.
It's also about building that foundation.
(13:09):
Public speaking is
it's it's it's it's an art,
and
everybody can master it. Everybody can master it,
but you have to start with first understanding
what are all of those foundational
skills, the
ABCs
of speaking in public that and and then
continuously
(13:29):
work on them just like when we first
learned how to ride a bicycle.
So go on about that. I love that.
What are the some some of the ABCs,
the foundations that you need to develop in
public speaking? Well, ABC, that stands for a
for agenda, b for beliefs, and c for
core communication skills.
So a is is, first, understanding your agenda.
(13:51):
And we we talk about all of the
things that fit into that agenda. Who, what,
where, when, why, and how. Who are you
speaking to? Why are you speaking? When are
you speaking? What are you speaking about? How
are you gonna be speaking to these people?
And a gazillion other questions that all go
into that first understanding that agenda.
The objective of understanding the ABCs is to
(14:15):
eliminate question marks.
Because the more question marks we have in
in our heads when we get up there
to speak, the more that it brings allows
to bring in anxieties.
For example,
will there be a microphone?
Is there a stage? How many people are
gonna be in the room? All of that
basic stuff. What does the audience wanna hear?
(14:37):
If all of those who, what, where, when,
why, and how questions have been answered beforehand,
we start eliminating a lot of those question
marks, which now puts us a lot more
in control. So first is the agenda.
The, And then what what comes after that?
That b is for the beliefs. Now, we
haven't talked about the core communication skills. There's
(14:59):
five of those. We'll get to those in
a minute. All of these are important, but
the b, belief
is a little is a notch or two
above the others. And this is our own
self talk,
believing that we're gonna do a good job.
I know I've done it. I know I
know I did it a lot when I
first started that I'm I'm gonna fail. I
did a lot of theater, a lot of
(15:20):
community theater. Those voices in my head and
so on and telling me I'm not I'm
I'm I'm gonna fail. I'm gonna lose a
line in this.
You know, it's it's it's it takes practice,
but this is where understanding that your audience
wants you to be successful.
Understanding that it's okay to make a mistake.
It's okay to get lost.
(15:41):
It's but it's all about how do you
respond to that? How do you rebound from
that mistake where you just lose it for
a minute or two, and then you get
back on track, but you're prepared.
So that's
How do you rebound? What do you do
to to rebound when you think, oh my
god. I just lost I lost my train
of thought.
(16:02):
Number one, you don't announce it.
Uh-oh. Here we go again, everybody. I'm sorry.
I've made a mistake. Hold on a minute.
Let me hear.
No.
You just stop.
You pause for a moment.
Hopefully you've got your notes.
And if you're working with me, I'm always
telling you, you got to have a backup,
(16:22):
you know? Okay. I got it all on
my slides. Well, what happens if the computer
dies?
So you got to have those backups
and just be comfortable enough
and and and know the material enough that
you're okay. It's okay.
It's okay.
And and and if you say something, you
know, you say, okay, wait a minute. Hold
on, everybody. Let me make sure, I'm I'm
(16:42):
where I need to be.
You know, that's one way. You could also
camouflage it and maybe ask a question to
the group. Okay, everybody. Since we just learned,
why the audience is important
and beliefs, we've talked about beliefs, What do
you what questions do you have about any
of that? I could throw it back on
my audience,
and and they wouldn't know that I lost
it at all.
(17:04):
So how I'm assuming c stands for core
communication skills. Would that be right? Yes. Core
communication skills and these there's five of these.
And and,
I've got to always remember them.
Bevlin, b e v
l n, b e v l n, b
for breathing.
(17:25):
We one of, you know, many ways of
of controlling our body and
building that confidence within ourselves
is being able to breathe properly. I would
imagine
that when you get nervous, you've been speaking
for a long time. When you were in
the beginning well, you mentioned to me something
about that first time you were on that
(17:47):
radio show.
That first time. So,
yes, what happened?
Just froze. Totally froze. You weren't breathing.
Mm-mm. So so if you were able to
breathe, yes, okay, you'd still be a little
nervous, I would imagine. But at least you
were able to breathe, they wouldn't have had
to drag you out of the studio.
(18:07):
Exactly. Exactly. So so breathing helps with now
if I'm breathing properly, breathing from the diaphragm,
this is also helping with projecting the voice.
It's also helping to make because usually when
we're when we're not breathing or if we're
tight and nervous, it's all it's all up
here in the chest.
It's and and and and that's that's gonna
(18:28):
help to make our arms a little bit
looser. So moving,
the the body a little bit will help
to loosen that.
So there's some other core. Oh, okay. You
were talking about the breathing. So breathing to
me is the core. So the next is
eye contact.
This is a biggie. Well, it's a biggie
anywhere. You need to be looking at your
(18:49):
audience because that's one of many ways of
developing that credibility
with your audience. But here in Zoom world,
it's looking it's getting used to looking directly
into that camera. Many people are looking over
here. Maybe all the faces
are on this other screen over here, or
I'm looking at my PowerPoint because that's over
here. But you can see how
(19:11):
it's not making it I'm not connecting with
you by not looking at my audience, and
and that's the the the one, the cheapest,
easiest tool to use in Zoom is to
look right into that camera, and it takes
practice.
So that's the eyes. V is the voice.
The next the third one is the voice,
the projection of the voice. I can't tell
(19:32):
you how many times I've listened to people
during networking events,
and they're talking about their own business. And
they're talking,
well, my business is all about helping with
presentation skills and and, you know, well, you
know, that's the type of thing. They don't
have any energy at all. This is your
business.
This is what you love. How am I
(19:53):
gonna refer people to you
if this is how you act? I don't
wanna refer people to a guy that just
can't that is not excited about his own
business. So v is for voice and vocal
variety.
B, l l l l is the,
let's come back to the, oh, l is
listening. Listening. Yes. You've got to listen to
(20:16):
your audience,
but it's not only listening with your ears,
you're also listening to your audience with your
eyes.
So if everybody's head falls down on the
table, you know, I may it may kinda
tell me something something ain't working right. So
I gotta kinda mix it up a little
bit. So l is listening, but listening also
comes in in the agenda
(20:37):
as well as listening upfront. Who's the audience?
Who, what, where, when, why, and how? So
that's listening. And
n, nonverbals.
93
of our message comes from nonverbals.
There's a lot of stuff that can fall
into that nonverbal bucket. Your PowerPoint is a
nonverbal.
What you wear. Some things are out of
(20:59):
your control, like the room itself. Oh, it's
too cold in here. The lunch was horrible.
So those are also nonverbals, and some may
be out of your control. So the a
is for agenda. The b for beliefs. The
five core communication skills, breathe,
eyes,
voice,
listening,
nonverbals.
This has been excellent. We have covered a
(21:21):
lot of ground in a really short period
of time. When it comes to engaging any
audience from any stage,
and someone says, we covered a lot and
I get it. If you were to say,
you know what? When it comes down to
that engagement, at least do above all, at
least do this one thing. At least start
here and do this. What would you say
that one thing to at least to do
(21:41):
better than the rest would be?
Make it more about your audience than yourself.
Your experiences,
your education,
all of these things are important.
But
it's it's it's about the the the the
WIFM. What's in it for me? Your audience
is thinking, okay, fine. You you've have all
of these great these these great experiences, but
(22:04):
how does that help me? So making it
more about your audience than about yourself.
This has been excellent. If people wanna find
you online, where's the best place or places
to go? Best place well, places, one is
my website, present your way to success.com,
or you can find me on LinkedIn, David
Doria.
And,
(22:25):
reach out. Let me know that you heard
it here, and I I I'll, I I
I'll send you a free copy of my
book on the eight principles
of engagement.
Thank you so much. This has been excellent,
sir. Thank you.
And scene.
Thank you for joining us today. I hope
you enjoyed the episode. I also hope that
(22:46):
you'll subscribe to the Idea Climbing podcast and
rate us on iTunes.
Visit ideaclimbing.com
to learn more about Idea Climbing and hear
more episodes about mentoring,
marketing, and big ideas.
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