9 Public Speaking Lessons You Didn’t Learn in School | Bathroom Break #71 🚽

0:01Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Break. That extra 10 minutes, you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both, but that's your choice. This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwetelson, from the Do This Not That podcast and SubjectLine.com. Each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. We are back with another episode of the Marking Millennials podcast.

0:38And today I'm here with bestselling author Jay Shwedelson. He just recently wrote a book. He also just recently got shouted out by the CEO of HubSpot for being a great inbound speaker. Because we're going to speak about speaking today. But how does it feel to have a bestselling book? It's just achievement. man. I will tell you the book is called stupider people. I've done it. It's up for presale. You can all, all proceeds, all net proceeds are going to charity, the V foundation for cancer research. That's really the only reason I'm doing it. I don't think I've ever had more, uh, imposter syndrome.

1:10I felt more uncomfortable about doing something in my life than doing this book because I'm borderline illiterate and, um, I don't even know. So we'll see how it goes, but what about you? Would you ever write a book? I've thought about it, but I'm again, illiterate like you. So it's probably going to take me years to write a book. The thing about Jay you should know is that if he has an idea, he just like does it. And if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. So he's like, I'm going to write a book. Okay, let me just write a book and just let me do 100 other things as well as write a book.

1:45Yeah, it's a horrendous idea. I'm not going to lie. This was more than I anticipated, but whatever. It's an experience. Screw it. So let's talk about public speaking. So both of us have sessions coming up at the Inbound Conference, which is a giant 12 ,000-person event that HubSpot puts on. We both have sessions. So we're going to rattle off some public speaking, must-dos, never-dos, how we approach a session. So, Daniel, you got your session coming up. What do you do? How do you approach a session? How do you make it not suck? I always practice my speech the day of, so I know I've already completed the speech on the day.

2:23the day so i'm not nervous to do it the first time that day so i'll run through it the morning of so it's kind of a mental walkthrough so i know hey my speech has already been completed this day instead of doing the night before i always run through it a good dry run before i go on stage so that's something i think more and more people should do is when once you have that mental block that you completed that day, I feel it's much easier to get on stage. Yeah, I'll tell you a couple things that I do and that I don't do. First off, if I'm going to practice my session, I always practice it with a lot of noise going on.

3:01People make the mistake, they'll practice it in a quiet room. Like, I need to be quiet and practice my speech. It's ridiculous. Because when you do actually speak somewhere, and again, this is not just for a big speech. It could be on a Zoom with five people. It could be in a conference room with 10 people. Everybody publicly speaks. When you practice what you're going to say, You practice it with the TV on. You practice it with people in the room or whatever. Because when you ultimately do speak on that Zoom or the conference room or a big speech somewhere, it's not going to be a perfect setup.

3:28People are going to be on their phones. They're going to be walking around. There's going to be noise. So you want to have an environment that's a little bit more similar to reality. What else do you think about? I like that advice of the noise. I never thought, but we used to actually in football, the week of a loud game, they used to like put on the speakers like loud music the whole time. And if it was a rainy day, a rainy game, they used to soak the footballs in water. So you need to be as close to the conditions on the field, like they say, in sports as possible. Another thing I like to do is I don't like to memorize speeches.

4:10speeches i like to have word cues in that is that i know that are built into the deck or on the notes just to say like hey i need to hit these these points because memorizing i feel if you in a flow and then you forget something there's nothing to go off of but at least if you have word cues you can always go to that next word in your head and come up with something because if you practice and if this something will come out i i don't believe you're probably going to say a different speech 20 different times but if you at least practice and have some word cues it helps you have a flow help you not get stuck if you get stuck in the middle of a speech oh my god i i couldn't agree with that more i think memorize the problem memorizing a speech is two parts you as the speaker and again it could be for a small group it doesn't matter You as the speaker screw yourself up because if you miss a word or sentence, you're like, oh, wait a minute, where am I?

5:09And that's a horrendous situation. There's nothing more boring than watching somebody or listening to somebody that has memorized something say it. They're not invested in it. They're just trying to get through it. Speaking of boring, I'll tell you the one thing that I will never do that most people do when they're doing a presentation at their company or whatever. Their first slide or two has a list. These are the seven things I'm going to take you through. Okay. They put that slide up and instantly when you're there on that zoom in the conference room or whatever, you're as an attendee, as a listener, like, Oh God, this is going to be terrible.

5:43Can we just get to number seven? We have to get through all of these horrendous. You're telling people it's going to be boring. It's going to suck. I know people tell you to tell them what you're going to say. And then you say it again. And whatever that stupid saying is, don't do that. Stop being boring out of the gate. Don't show them the list of the crap that you're going to say because that is when you lose everybody. I also think for me, it's speeches go faster than you think. So what I like to do is concise the amount of tips I'm going to give just because you only have enough time and you think it's going to go shorter.

6:18So if you have like 15 tips, try to get it down to 10 to 8 tips and just go for the best 8 tips. because you're going to get on stage and the worst thing to do on stage is having to rush to the end of the deck. So it's better to finish early, I believe, in a speech than late in a speech. So always try to concise your talk a little bit into smaller chunks because even if you're in smaller chunks, I guarantee you'll probably get close to that time on stage. Dude, I needed that advice a few weeks ago before I submitted my deck for inbound because I'm doing an email tip session. It's a 45-minute session.

6:58I have 101 slides. I mean, it is so, it is going to be like, I'm going to be on like 12 Celsius or Celsius or whatever the hell you say. It is not going to be a good situation at all. The other thing I'll tell you, one last tip from me, is cater to the lowest common denominator in your audience. I am never shocked because now it's happened to me so many times. I'll talk or I'll be on a Zoom or in a conference room, whatever, and a Huff slides up and I'll say something like, and this is for DTC marketers or this is for ABM. And I won't actually say what the acronym is. And then invariably people will come and be afterwards, what's DTC?

7:39I totally missed that, whatever. And you make people feel stupid, even though they're not stupid. Not everybody knows. I don't know all the acronyms. I have no idea what they mean. Never make somebody feel stupid in the audience. You want everyone to feel as comfortable as they They can. So if you say, oh, DTC, oh, that's direct to consumer marketing. ABM, that's account based marketing. Say what it is that you're saying. Cater to the person who might not know, because if not, there's nothing that's a bigger turnoff. Yeah, that's actually something hard for a lot of people. I think you try to go on stage and try to act like an expert in something.

8:11But the way to become an expert is like teach it simply. And then you learn this in social and all marketing. try to get to simplify the talk to as much as possible. I think that's a big mistake I always think about is even in like newsletters and stuff like that, I always say like, even if it says like call to action, like CTA, I always have to say call to action, CTA. So people know that at least they're understanding this because they'll get lost in. So that's a really good point is spell things out because people don't know. So, all right. Now it's just on a human level. Now you're getting ready to do a session.

8:49Do you like talk to people like the 10 minutes before you give a talk, right? It's always so awkward. Like everyone's sitting there in the audience. You're kind of there. What's your move? Do you just stand there on stage like a big goober? Or do you go into the audience and talk to people and try to connect with people? Like what do you do? I try to not have a panic attack. So I'm like trying to breathe, like center myself. Like I swear the times I've been on stage, I'm like this close to being like, I'm out before I get on stage. So Jay is a completely different. I see Jay before he goes on stage.

9:26He's like, he's like double fisting two Celsius is like hyped up talking to 18 people gets on stage. And literally me, I'm like sweating profusely before I'm getting on stage. So it's two different types of people out there. That's amazing. You know what I always try to do? And I think this is good to do. Again, in a Zoom, a conference room, a big speech doesn't, whatever. I try to connect with at least one human being, like have a normal conversation. Oh, where are you from? Oh, I'm from Nashville. Oh my God, I was at this restaurant, blah, blah, blah. Because the second that you can humanize whoever it is that you're about to speak to, it puts you at ease.

10:02You're like, oh, they're people. They want me to do a good job. I want to do a good job. This is not that complicated. And that's, And by the way, everybody gets nervous. If you think, oh, I'm not a good public speaker, I get nervous. Don't label yourself that way. Everybody is nervous. If they say they're not, they are full of it. So don't ever label yourself that you can't publicly speak. That stinks. But you know what doesn't stink? This podcast doesn't stink. Even though it's called Bathroom Break and bathrooms stink. I don't know what I'm talking about. This has been an incredible episode as usual.

10:32Listen, everybody go. Subscribe to Daniel's show. And by the way, if you mention this show and you tag us on Instagram at The Marketing Millennials and at Jay Schwedelson, we will put you on our story, which is very exciting. So we appreciate you and thanks for being here. Thank you.

10:55Daniel, come on, man. I got to get back to work. Get out of there. All right. While he's still in there, this is Jay. Check out my podcast, Do This, Not That, for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out. Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Mark and the Light podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the bathroom break. We talk about marking tips that we just spew out and it could be anything from email, subject line to any marking tips in the world.

11:28We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out. Later.