PUBLIC SPEAKING: How are YOU Different?

Can You Remember Who Spoke?

How many conferences do you attend during a calendar year?  Ten?  Five?  Three?  One?  Easy to answer.  Now consider this.  How many of the speakers you heard during a calendar year can you actually remember?

My guess is that each of you has had the opportunity to speak in front of a group at one point or another in your career.  You prepare, rehearse and then deliver.  And so does everyone else. 

 

 

To be successful, you need to be memorable.  You need to be ... different.

 

The reasons are obvious.  Memorable speakers get what's referred to these days as "word of mouth marketing" which is huge.  They get testimonials and they create traction.  They elicit emotion and jump start action steps from those in attendance.  And they also do wonders for those who put on a conference.  After all, organizers want to make their clients happy and they want to create repeat business.  A good list of speakers creates follow up attendance for the next year’s conference.

Good Speakers Talk.  Great Speakers Engage.

 

So the question becomes… how can you be different or YOUnique?  Consider these as goals to achieve.

·         A dynamic speaker, not a reader

·         Enthusiastic delivery with passion for his or her subject

·         Unique way to deliver the material everyone else delivers

·         Strong opinions tied to the material

·         A GREAT open and a STRONGER close

 

Tying in current events, recent issues or things everyone can relate to or knows about is always a way to get people’s attention.  I’ve said this many times, but the speaker who’s chained to the podium, stiff and monotone will send an audience reaching for their cell phones to check email in a hurry.

I ENCOURAGE using phone

I’ve taken it to a different extreme.  I actually encourage people to pull out their phones.  Each talk I do that has any type of PowerPoint involved has a “hashtag” on every slide.  I’ll have my own Twitter handle somewhere noticeable on the slides as well.  The goal is simple.  I want people to use the hashtag to create a running line of content from the talk – a twitter feed of memorable moments or quotes.  This keeps people involved in the talk as active participants and they’ll type the things that resonate to them.



 

Bottom line is this… if you haven’t gone into the planning stages of your talk without thinking of how you are going to stand out from others, you haven’t planned to make an impact.  And at the end of the day – or in this case, the end of the talk – we all want to create and impact and be remembered.

Thought for the Day – Standing up on the stage is easy.  Standing out is the challenge that motivates the best speakers and separates them as well.