10 days ago Ryan Deiss and the team from Digital Marketer in conjunction with Global1 Events put on Traffic and Conversion Summit Australia. Over 700 people gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney for three days of presentations about online traffic and conversions.
I was humbled and honoured to be asked to speak on the first day about the importance of building online communities. I will admit I was a little nervous given the calibre of the speakers I was sharing the stage with. Of course Ryan and Richard Lindner from Digital Marketer as well as Nick Bowditch (the only person in Australasia to have worked for Facebook and Twitter), Gideon Shalwick from YouTube advertising platform Veeroll, Mike Rhodes (who co-wrote the Google AdWords book with Perry Marshall) and one of my mentors Ed Dale. Plus two very special appearances by Janine Allis, founder of Boost Juice (amazing woman) and Naomi Simson, founding director of Red Balloon who I heard was also amazing. Sadly, I missed the last day as I was in bed with the flu.
I was also concerned that my topic wasn't as sexy as some of the others on the schedule. Turns out lots of people are interested in building online communities and the feedback I have had since my talk has been overwhelming. I've had so many questions about building online communities and creating recurring revenue within those communities that I've started a private Facebook group to keep the conversation going.
It's completely free to join so if you are serious about creating recurring revenue you can request to join here.
Here are a few photos of me in action courtesy of my friend David Jenyns from Melbourne SEO Services. If you ever wanted to know what these large conventions look like inside, take a peek.
Would you like to speak at an event like this? Are you scared of public speaking? Ask me anything in the comments and I'll do my best to answer.
Awesome stuff Troy I would have loved to have been there!
One of my goals is to speak at a conference, although I definitely need to start small first! What would you recommend as a good starting place? I’m thinking something like a local meet up. As for the presentation itself, what is a simple formula that could be used to build from?
Cheers!
Hey Simon,
Meetups are a great place to start to get your feet wet, and build confidence before a paid gig. Make sure that you are doing it either for fun or love of the topic, or it helps build your brand and following. I’m in the same space as you. Now I’ve spoken at my local WordPress, and SEO meetups. This is good for building your authority and helping your local community. But it won’t directly increase your new client base. It may however get you some collaboration work, or overflow work when your colleagues can’t keep up with demand.
But other public speaking gigs that can directly help you reach your goals, may be things like speaking at business breakfasts (unpaid) or local community groups, SME Luncheons, etc.. You need to know your audience and think of ways to get in front of them in small stepping stones, To build your personal brand and authority. Other non direct things that could step you closer are; create a vlog and help get your face and voice recognised or a YouTube channel. Create a podcast. All of which will help boost confidence and skills in public speaking and production, presentations and materials.
As with all presentations, knowing what you are presenting, whom it will be presented too, and what will it be presented on (visually) are key. Pre test all slides in a dark room, can the font be read from the back of the room, Test the slides in a light room, do the same,.I would suggest if you don’t know the room to include both in your archive of things to take. Double check connections. Do you need to bring a laptop, what connection does the projector need. etc. Chris Lema wrote a good article recently about speaking at WordCamps, http://chrislema.com/get-started-speaking-at-wordcamps/ some great points there. On top of that if you are talking about code, include code snippets not blocks of code. Be consistent similar template design through the whole presentation. Many people may ask for slides. If you have pre-branded with your twitter handle etc. One there will be no extra work to post it to slideshare, and two people will remember your talk because your slides won’t have changed. Double check the font! blue links on blue background do not work.. If you use acronyms make sure you explain them at least once in your talk, so the few that aren’t familiar don’t feel alienated and tune out from your presentation.
Talk up! Just like in a webinar you hear people ask can everybody hear my voice. If there is no mic, double check everyone can hear you and see you. Move or talk-up.
If you are not going to take questions throughout the presentation, make the audience aware at the start.
Another webinar trick. Audience participation! Getting the audience to stay alert and pay attention. Ask them questions, or get them to raise their hands, anything to get them moving, will help break up your presentation, and make it more enjoyable for everyone.
Lastly, have fun, and don’t worry about mistakes, you are human, and everybody makes mistakes. Just learn from it, so you can improve upon it for the next one.
Ps a couple of things I forgot from my presentations in the past, An introduction of your name, it’s terrible to get asked at the end of a twenty minute presentation, what’s your name, so we can lead the questions to you. And included a link back to you or your brand in your presentation. You never know when a client or potential client might come across you. Be ready.
Chris.
Whoa Chris – great response dude. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to give such a detailed reply. You rock!
I agree, Chris’ answer was great, kudos for having people like that helping your readers. I especially liked his comments about audience participation. Audience participation is one of the skills we focus on, and it pays big dividends, especially when it comes to lead generation.
FYI, our specialty is speaking for the finance industry, but the audience participation techniques work for pretty much any industry. We cover them in the fourth part of this series…
http://dopplercomm.com/speaking-as-lead-gen-intro/
–Matt Krause
Hey Simon,
Start at WordPress MeetUps – they are a very safe crowd and very forgiving.
My usual go-to format for a presentation is this:
– outline the Promise of the presentation (why should they pay attention)
– outline the current problem (what you intend to solve)
– bust a common myth (something they think to be true but you can prove is not)
– tell your story (briefly – why you are qualified to speak)
– teach your content (this should be about 70% of the presentation)
– outline rookie mistakes (the common errors that newbies make)
– give them next steps (what should they do next?)
I hope that helps.
Hey Buddy – big crowd! Love to hear your talk if there’s a recording.
Hey Seamus, Ryan’s team usually record the events, if you look you will see in one of the photos a camera person. I had a look at his site, he’s not currently selling the Sydney event, but you can buy the California event. It’s come down in price. It would be pretty cool though Troy if you do get it to syndicate it out to us,
I’m pretty sure the Sydney event recordings are only on sale to people who attended the event but I’ll make some enquiries.
I’m not sure if I’l get a recording – but if I can’t I’d be happy to give the presentation again at a MeetUp and record it.
Fantastic Troy! I second (or third) the vote for being able to see your presentation, which, knowing you, would have been awesome. I’m not at all surprised that you got such great feedback!
I love speaking to groups of any size, and for any length of time, both for business and in support of my favourite not-for-profits. I think it runs in my genes, and I’m pleased to say that at least two of my kids are also uber-comfortable on a stage- such a great skill for young people to have.
One of the challenges for me is organising my slide decks- I feel like they’re a bit random sometimes in a visual sense. Do you have any suggestions about how to put together a really polished slide deck?
I’d also love to know how much time goes into the development of your keynotes, and how long you spend rehearsing in preparation for each event? Also, any tips for managing your voice? I sometimes find I get more and more hoarse as the day goes on. I’m sure that hydration is important, but perhaps there is something else that helps preserve a voice for the duration of a workshop?
Jacki
Thanks Troy
Great questions Jackie.
I use keynote templates from GraphicRiver for consistency. I spent 2 full days putting together this particular presentation and rehearsed it through twice before hand – so around 20 hours of work in total.
Lots of water and not too much booze the night before helps the voice 🙂
And here are some of favourite warm-ups –
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