I shot this video live at a conference in Sydney to help illustrate how you can speak in front of large groups of people without putting them to sleep.
Transcription
Hey, Troy Dean here and I'm actually speaking live at Digital Marketing Summit here in Sydney in front of all these amazing people. Hello. I thought I'd just make a very quick video to give you a little bit of, some tips on speaking at conferences like this without putting people to sleep.
The first thing you want to do is you want to start off with the promise. The thing about speaking at conferences like this is it's great for building your profile and generating an audience really quickly. The problem is that if you don't have structure, you end up just going off on tangents and ranting and that tends to lose people's attention.
In the past we've been taught to make lots of notes and stand at the lectern and read from the notes and instantly you disengage. What you want to do is keep them engaged as much as you possibly can. Over the last three years I've developed this framework which has really exploded my speaking confidence. It allows me to get invited to conferences like this and speak all over the place. Here's my very simple framework.
Start off by outlining the promise of what they're going to get from your presentation. Then outline the problem with the current state of affairs.
Then bust a myth if you can. Old school vs new school way of doing things. It's really good to set you up as the expert. Then tell them a little bit about your story, very briefly. Then give them the kind of three to seven teaching points that you're going to teach them in your presentation and then give them some rookie mistakes, like dos and don'ts and then sign off with the next steps. I hope you find that useful. Leave me a comment under the video. I'll see you in the next video. Until then, stay curious and make some noise.
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Hi Troy,
What great advice. This is such a good structure. Simple, yet effective. I now feel more confident that next time I speak, my audience wont fall asleep, not that they have yet, but you know what I mean. It’s so important to engage the audience. Can’t wait to use it. Thanks again.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment Tegan. Glad to hear it’s helpful.
Good reminder as I prep to speak at Wordcamp Portland. 🙂
Good luck in Portland Kronda.
Brilliant strategy Troy. This is something I’m going to be needing quite soon and now that I’ve seen that simple framework I’m more confident that it won’t just turn into a mindless rant. 🙂
This would probably make a good framework for an email sequence too.
Thanks so much.
You could definitely use this in an email Mark. Nice approach.
Nice and to the point. Nice jacket too. 🙂
AWESOME Troy! I’m curious how you moved into making a video as part of your speech. What did the audience think?
I taught them the framework and then asked “You wanna see this in action?” – then invited a volunteer on stage to shoot the video.
As usual, so simple and obvious when you explain it, but I’m sure perfecting your methods took time, trial, and error. Thanks for putting in the hard work and sharing your knowledge, Troy!
You’re welcome Andrew – thanks for the encouraging words.
Nice angle to shoot the video on-stage Troy, love it!
Thanks Wilco.
Great approach to make your points directly from the trenchline
Great presentation Troy, it was awesome as always and very inspiring. I’m digging the “stay curious and make some noise” too!
Simple, quick and too the point. I like it. Great touching points on delivering a great presentation that keeps the audience engaged.
Love this! Pure brilliance teaching the framework and then demonstrating via recoding. So true about losing the engagement constantly looking down at notes. Can clearly recall sitting through many of such tedious presentations. Love your work! ???
Thanks Jen.