Ep 136 Even Bad Speakers Write Great Speeches

What really makes a great speaker? Is it a well-written talk? Is it an impeccable stage presence? Is it something the speaker is "just born with" or is it a combination of everything above? Today, we're breaking down why even bad speakers can write great speeches so that you can start looking beyond your outline when it comes to improving your speaking presentation. In this episode of The Speak to Scale Podcast, I'm breaking down how to up-level your presentation whether you're a good speaker or not.

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What Makes a Great Public Speaker?

When we see people speaking on podcasts, going to events, and speaking on stages, we want that for ourselves. It looks effortless for them and maybe even glamorous in our eyes.

What we're seeing is the finished product and it looks amazing.

What we don't see are...

The years they've put in behind the scenes or the grinding away at the midnight oil when no one else was watching.
The hundreds of clients they've worked with that make their presentation feel like it's speaking directly to you. They've worked with people just like you and they get you.
The hours of presentation practice, live streams, and podcast interviews they've clocked to practice and perfect their delivery style.
The failed launches, the nightmare clients, the tough calls, the fear of losing it all, the friends who didn't get it, and the family still questioning what they actually do for a living.

A well-written talk, alone, won't make you a great speaker. You've got to get comfortable delivering it, WELL from the stage. That, my friend, comes with practice.

Prioritize Perfecting Your Presentation

You're the face of your company. You want to represent your brand well. That means you need to take the time to not only pour into crafting a great presentation but also dedicating the time to perfect your delivery.

A great speaker is found at the intersection of:

Experience in the subject matter
Passion for both the topic they're presenting and the audience they're serving
Boatloads of preparation

If you're missing one of those things, your audience will be able to tell.

Practicing your presentation allows you to:

Spot bad presentation habits that need to be cut
See areas of improvement
Identify things that sounded good on paper but didn't connect as well as you thought

Maybe you have a bad habit of awkwardly pacing the stage or darting your eyes around the room. A lack of eye contact can leave your audience wondering if you're inexperienced, insecure, insincere, arrogant, or not even interested in them. Awkward pacing is just downright distracting.

When you practice your presentation you spot areas of potential improvement like slowing down your pacing, increase pauses, cutting out unnecessary data points, and maybe even adding in more story elements.

Schedule a Dress Rehearsal

The dress rehearsal matters. It's your opportunity to identify what needs improvement and increase your confidence. Once you've walked through it once (or five times) you build more confidence in sharing your message. Not rehearsing your presentation leaves your audience seeing the rough-first-draft version of your talk, versus the perfected final presentation.

If the dress rehearsal is so important, why do so many business owners skip this step?

They're usually under or overly confident.

The overly confident business owner says, "I've got this. I can just wing it. I know my stuff." They show up with great energy, but maybe they don't know how to work the tech, their content is a bit overwhelming or their pacing is hard to keep up with. The audience remembers them as a high-energy presenter... but they can't really remember what exactly they were speaking about and they certainly didn't go implement any of the lessons from the talk. Wait, WERE there even any lessons for the audience to implement? Probably not.

The less-than-confident business owner likely avoiding doing the rehearsal due to a fear of public speaking. If that's you, friend - practice is crucial for you to build that confidence. The more you go through those motions, the closer you are to being confident presenting your message.

Whether you're confident presenting from the stage or your knees start shaking at the thought of grabbing a microphone... the key to you becoming a great speaker lies beyond your well-written presentation.

I believe in this so fiercely that we've even added this practice into our monthly call schedule inside of The Speaking Strategy Academy. Each month, one of our members takes the (virtual) stage and delivers their presentation for our group. This allows them to build that confidence, have a dress-rehearsal, get hot seat coaching directly from me and get feedback from our entire community. What's better than a dress rehearsal? A dress rehearsal paired with live coaching and valuable testimonials that you can use for marketing purposes.

Wishing you had that type of support? Head on over to TheSpeakingStrategyAcademy.com and join today. Applications are open and we would love to welcome you to the family. You'll get instant access to our entire training program, exclusive community, live group coaching calls, and personalized feedback directly from me.

I can't thank you enough for joining us for another episode of The Speak to Scale Podcast. If you loved this episode, there are two other episodes that pair perfectly with today's

Looking for another episode? You can always head to our episode directory and search The Speak to Scale Podcast archive.

We'll see you back here next week for a guest interview all about how to find podcasts to be featured on.

If you're not already a member of the academy, we'd love to invite you to apply to join The Speaking Strategy Academy. You'll get instant access to our A-Z speaking training system with video lessons, transcripts, scripts, templates, and more.... access to our live group coaching calls, personalized 1:1 feedback on your work from me, and an opportunity to present your work live in front of our community for hot seat coaching and feedback. What are you waiting for, friend? Apply today!

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