Cramming For Your Speech to the Last Minute

I once had a colleague who began preparing his talk the night before he spoke. Because of this, he worked late into the night and in the morning on his slides. It was common for him to be rearranging PowerPoint slides minutes before his name was called. When he stood to speak, there was a “deer in the headlights” reaction as he noticed his venue and audience for the first time.

I previously wrote about the speech preparation process — follow that advice and don’t be the deer in the headlights.

But, adequate speech preparation isn’t always enough. Years ago, although my presentation was ready, I would still retreat to a quiet place at the venue and spend the time right up to my speech “mentally preparing.” Last minute cramming was not productive. In fact, it probably made me more nervous that I would otherwise have been. More recently, I have realized that there are three much more important activities to keep you busy from the time you arrive at the venue to the time you speak.

Activity #1 — Study the Venue Logistics

Whenever possible, arrive at the venue while the room is still empty. This is especially important if the venue is new to you. Now is the time to solve any issues that might arise with the physical space. There are many issues to work out depending on the venue and the nature of your talk. For starters, here are a few to consider:

• Acquaint yourself with the speaking area.
• Do a audio check if the room warrants it.
• Plan where you’ll place props, notes, or supplies before, during, and after their use.
• Determine where the projector, screen, whiteboard, or flip chart will be relative to you. If your audience cannot see your visual aids, they will not connect with your message.
  • If these items cannot be moved, plan where you need to stand to avoid being an obstruction.
  • If these items can be moved, move them to the optimal locations for visibility from the audience.

Activity #2 — Meet Your Audience

An inexperienced speaker waits until they are introduced for their presentation before beginning to establish rapport with the audience. An experienced speaker, on the other hand, understands that rapport can be built from the moment you arrive at the venue.

• Mingle with your audience.
• Don’t let your ego interfere. Acting like a prima donna will damage your credibility with the audience.
• Ask questions and listen to the answers. You will often be able to pick up nuggets of information that you can integrate into your talk.
• Be interested and genuine. Not only will your audience like you better, but you will be more positive going into your talk, and your performance will show it.

Activity #3 — Watch, Listen, and Participate in the Event Agenda

I’ve seen speakers who appear intent on making a grand entrance no earlier than their scheduled time. (Occasionally, this cannot be helped due to scheduling…) They are missing a great opportunity to form bonds of common experience with the audience.

• Listen to other speakers.
  • Does their message overlap with yours? How should you change your speech?
  • Is their message complementary in some way? How can you accentuate this?
• What themes or trends are present at the event?
• What humorous things have happened? Can you incorporate humor by referring back to them?
• What is the mood of the audience in talks preceding yours? If the energy in the room is low, you may need to incorporate elements to pick it up.

Study the venue, meet your audience, and participate in the agenda. These three activities will reduce your nervousness and improve your performance much more than any last-minute cramming.

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Lose weight. Pay off debt. Quit smoking.

Easy, right? No, not really.

Most resolutions fail because they are wishes, not goals. Often, the best way to achieve a long-term goal is to focus on the supporting habits. For example:

By focusing on the supporting habits (and keeping the end goal in mind, of course), we put ourselves in an excellent position to succeed. The same strategy applies to all other New Year’s resolutions, including another popular one: becoming a better public speaker.

Becoming a better speaker is not going to happen quickly and it is not going to happen without dedication and hard work. Nobody can master the 25 skills every public speaker should have after just one speech. To put yourself in the best position to succeed, develop the public speaking habits which give you the best chance of success.

For general advice, check out 14 Tips For Resolutions That Stick in the New Year. For your public speaking resolutions, these five habits will bring you to your goal:

Habit #1: Join Toastmasters.

The cost is minimal, and is one of the best ways to invest in yourself. If you are not already a member of the world’s leading communication and leadership organization, then look up a club in your area and join today. Toastmasters provides a supportive environment in which you will conquer your public speaking fears, develop your presentation skills, and become an effective communicator.

As a bonus, sticking to this habit will help you stick to the other four habits on this New Year’s Resolutions list for public speaking.

Habit #2: Practice. Practice. Practice.

Integrate public speaking into your daily and weekly routines. Toastmasters is once a week, but speaking more often is better. Actively seek opportunities to speak. Chair a meeting. Conduct a seminar. Teach a course. Emcee an event. Speak up at your next volunteer organization meeting. Introduce another speaker. Whether you speak for 30 seconds or 30 minutes, consistent practice will grow your skills over time.

Habit #3: Study great speakers.

Seriously. Study them. Learn from the video critiques on this blog. Watch the many excellent TED presenters. Search YouTube. Take notes the next time you are listening to a speaker. Emulate their strengths. Avoid their mistakes.

Habit #4: Study yourself too.

Many people shy away from recording themselves while speaking, but there is no better form of feedback. You can use a digital voice recorder or a video camera (or a camera phone, or …). Watch and listen with an objective view.

Seek out feedback from others to help recognize your strengths and weaknesses, which leads me to the fifth supporting habit…

Habit #5: Find/Hire a public speaking coach/mentor/buddy.

Build a relationship with a public speaker who you admire. Ask them for advice. Find someone else who shares your goal, and work together with them to improve your speaking skills. The buddy system works for exercising, it works for quitting smoking, and it works for public speaking too. Make it a regular ritual.

To accelerate your growth, hire a coach! Hire me. Hire Lisa Braithwaite. Hire Joan Curtis. Hire Rich Hopkins. Hire one of thousands of speech coaches to help you achieve your goal of becoming a great presenter. Hiring a coach won’t eliminate the need for hard work, but one-on-one coaching is an excellent way to elevate your skills and discover your unique voice.

Let 2008 be the year that you become a great public speaker, a skill which helps you achieve your other resolutions too.

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Universal Truths of Public Speaking

To be fair, there are numerous gems in the lengthy list which are virtually universal truths of public speaking. These include:

1. Audience always comes first.
11. Tell a story, make a point.
125. Speak on something that you believe in.
140. The best speeches are not written, they are rewritten.
250. Persistence is key.

Who Says I Don’t Care About the Audience?

However, some of the advice seems too hasty and forceful, such as:

64. Never ask your audience how are they doing at the start of your presentation because we know you don’t really care. It’s just a sign that you are unprepared.
65. That includes “Good morning”, “Good afternoon” and “Good evening”.

Huh? Who says I don’t care how my audience is? While I concede that it is better to open with something more dynamic, I see no problem in building rapport with the audience if the situation allows for it.

A Public Speaking Guarantee?

Some of the 250 things are good general principles, but saying that you can “guarantee your speaking success” by following them is exaggeration. For example:

92. Observe the 10/20/30 rule: 10 slides, not more than 20 minutes, font size 30 at least.
93. Seriously, 80 slides in 45 minutes? You do the math.

As a general principle, the 10/20/30 rule from Guy Kawasaki has significant merit in many situations. But a successful speaker needs to be able to adapt the presentation style to the audience and the message being delivered. The Lessig Method applied in the Identity 2.0 presentation by Dick Hardt uses far more than 10 slides, but was perfect for that audience and that message.

Eek!

Some of the advice given is just plain scary. Consider:

103. Ten steps to becoming a better speaker.
104. Speak.
105. Speak more.
106. Speak even more.
107. Speak even more than that.
108. Speak when you don’t want to.
109. Speak when you do.
110. Speak when you have something to say.
111. Speak when you don’t.
112. Speak all the time.
113. Keep speaking.
114. In short, it is all about stage time.
115. Having said that, don’t speak for the sake of speaking.

I understand the Stage Time, Stage Time, Stage Time mantra. But one should never, ever “speak when you don’t want to” or “speak when you don’t [have something to say]“. Even though these points are, I assume, delivered somewhat tongue in cheek (see 115), it is careless to even suggest. Stage time is only a benefit if your heart is in it, and you are actually attempting to deliver a message.

Is Speaking a Game?

179. Treat your next speech like a game! Have loads of fun with it.

Excuse me? This contradicts “1. Audience always comes first” (a theme repeated in points 31, 33, 34, 35, 124, 139, 185, 217, and others). Public speaking is not a game. The audience are not donating their time so that you can practice and play games with them. Whatever you do, do it with purpose.

Repetition or Redundancy?

As indicated in the previous paragraph, some themes are repeated in the list of 250. Sometimes the repetition is bordering on redundant:

13. Make a serious point after you get your audience laughing – they remember better.
214. Make a serious point after your audience laugh, it sticks better.

Am I being mean and overly critical? I don’t think so. Great blog posts, like great presentations, need to be carefully edited. They need to be logically consistent. In an ideal world, they need to be free from marketing hype (“250 Things… Guarantee… Success”) and blatant self-promotion. (Is your book really the 2nd best book ever written?)

233. Don’t be afraid to say this to your audience – “RIP ME APART!” Repeat after me, “RIP ME APART!”

Consider yourself ripped, Eric. You can do better, and you have done so many times on your excellent blog.

Update – 2007-11-23

Eric demonstrated that he listens to his audience by trimming his original list down from 250 to 50. The resulting list is of significantly higher quality. Well done, Eric! Does this mean I should look at the posts on this blog and edit them down to the best 10% too?

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Last weekend, I attended an educational seminar led by Chris Ford. He was masterful in how effectively he encouraged audience participation.

He demonstrated many of the techniques covered an earlier article — Leading the Perfect Q&A — including:

• Announce the Q&A. He established the “ground rules” in the first minute (of his 1-hour session). Questions and participation were encouraged throughout the session.
• Encourage questions.
• Restate the question, perhaps in your own words. Chris rephrased several questions, generally expressing the idea more succinctly than the audience member had.
• Give your full attention to the person asking the question. Chris not only turned his attention to the question, but also walked toward the audience member asking the question.
• Don’t end your presentation with your last Q&A response. Chris ended the seminar with his own scripted concluding words.

Chris also demonstrated other techniques which led to an effective Q&A:

• Reward participation early and often. The very first audience member to ask a question was rewarded with an inexpensive gift. A reward was also given to the second, the third, the fourth, and many other people throughout the session. This established an excited mood in the room that led to tremendous audience participation. This also had a symbolic flair. Chris was seen as a giver, both of physical items as well as knowledge.
• Arrange assistants with portable microphones. The room was large, and the audience was scattered around banquet tables. Chris arranged for two conference volunteers (one on either side of the room) to provide mobile and dynamic microphones to capture audience questions. When hands went up, Chris quickly directed one of the two volunteers to the appropriate audience member. This translated into questions that the entire audience could easily hear.

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

A great Q&A session – one that adds value to your presentation – requires planning and thoughtful contributions from both the audience and the speaker.

Q&A from Audience Perspective

From the perspective of audience members, Gretchen Rubin offers ten tips for asking questions from the audience:

1. Wait for the microphone, if there is one.
2. Pause for silence – don’t talk over a chattering crowd.
3. Don’t make excuses for yourself. This is tiresome and unnecessary.
4. Don’t address speakers by their first names. Some people will disagree with me, I’m sure, but this always strikes me as affected and inappropriately familiar, unless the mood of the presentation is extremely casual.
5. Don’t be long-winded.
6. Plan it out. This will help you avoid being long-winded.
7. Don’t ask double question. Give other people a chance.
8. If appropriate, say a little about yourself. Just a little.
9. Speak up. Nothing’s more frustrating to the audience than not being able to hear a question.
10. Remember: you’ll be happy that you asked a question. I’m one of those people who rarely asks a question at such an occasion. I never spoke in class in law school. But whenever I do participate, I feel more engaged and enjoy myself more. I’m working on speaking up.

Though it isn’t always the case, let’s assume that your audience has read and followed Ms. Rubin’s excellent advice. If so, then the audience will fulfill their half of the Q&A contract. What can you do as a speaker to ensure a great Q&A?

Before the Q&A

• Plan for a Q&A. Too often, speakers fill their entire allotted time with their (formal) presentation. The consequence is that the Q&A session either doesn’t happen (everyone loses) or it is forced to run overtime (audience members may be hungry, irritated, or have to leave). Budget for the Q&A when you plan the presentation. Cut material as necessary to ensure you allow time for the Q&A.
• Be prepared. Anticipate the questions that will be asked. Look at your presentation objectively, and use your audience analysis to predict their questions. When appropriate, prepare a few “extra” slides (perhaps the ones that you cut out of your final formal presentation) that will assist in addressing questions during the Q&A. If you have presented the material before, the questions you have received in the past are likely to come up again if you have not altered the core presentation.
• Announce the Q&A. Some speakers welcome questions throughout a presentation; most speakers, however, prefer to handle questions near the end. If you fall into the latter group, don’t leave your audience wondering if there will be a Q&A. Announce this early, and you will accomplish two things: (1) Your audience is reassured that they will have a chance to pose questions and (2) Your audience is encouraged to start thinking of questions.
• Encourage questions. When you announce the Q&A session, be positive. “I look forward to addressing your questions” rather than “At 10:45, we’ll have the obligatory fifteen minutes for questions.” At certain points in your presentation, you may also want to encourage questions. “Does anyone have any questions about this process?” or “If anyone has questions or comments about this process, please bring them forward in the Q&A session.”

During the Q&A

• Restate the question, perhaps in your own words. Doing this provides two benefits. First, you increase the likelihood that the audience has heard the question. Second, you increase the likelihood that you understand the question before you proceed to answer it.
• Don’t assume everyone in your audience has the same background knowledge about the question that you do. No audience member wants to hear a response like “Yes, John, the ___ strategy would be appropriate for a company like yours because…” if they don’t know which company is being referred to or what kind of company it is. Share any contextual knowledge you have so that the audience better understands the question as well as your answer. A better alternative would be “[setting the context] John is the CEO of Frodo Solutions, a consulting company which helps small businesses with ___. [now, addressing the question] Yes, John, the ___ strategy would be appropriate for a company like yours because…”
• Give your full attention to the person asking the question. Show them professional courtesy by listening to their entire question before beginning your response. If you interrupt, the message you are sending is “I’m not really interested in your question. I’m more interested in talking…”
• Keep the questions on topic. Too often, presenters will say “This is getting off topic, but the answer is…” and then proceed to bore most of the audience. It is better to say “That’s a great question, but a little off topic. Let’s discuss that offline.” Use the same approach if you are asked a question that would just take too long to adequately answer within the time allotted.
• Don’t let a single person dominate the Q&A. Maybe they are a heckler with an intent to disrupt, or maybe they just feel that all of their questions need to be given priority. In either case, be assertive and deflect their questions offline. Give other audience members a chance to ask their questions.
• Be truthful. If you don’t know the answer, then say you don’t know the answer. Don’t lie. Don’t mislead. Don’t tap dance around the question for two minutes giving your sales pitch without ever addressing the question. Don’t risk your integrity to avoid embarrassment. Acknowledge that you don’t know the answer. Consider asking your audience if anyone has the answer.

After the Q&A

• Invite follow-up questions. Stick around after your presentation, or make yourself available at a later time. Provide contact information. Your goal is to leave no question unanswered.
• Don’t end your presentation with your last Q&A response. This is generally a weak conclusion, especially if the last question/answer was negative or neutral. Save your concluding words (and perhaps your final slides) for after the formal Q&A.

Some speaking opportunities do not allow for a full Q&A session (e.g. the 60-second elevator pitch). However, the majority of presentations are enhanced by the inclusion of a productive Q&A session. Do your part, and trust that the audience will do theirs.

What have I missed? Please share your tips for leading a great Q&A session.

Other Q&A Resources

• David Greenberg: How to Master the Question-And-Answer Session
• Speaker’s Bank: Top 10 Tips for Handling a Question and Answer Session

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.