7 Steps to Get Started in Public Speaking

I often get asked "how do you get started in speaking?". It's a tricky question that often assumes some binary or clear cut response. Like all creative pursuits, do you start with the message or do you start with an audience in mind and go from there? It's a bit of both. While "commercial success" is not always the goal of public speaking, the ability to be self sustaining is a factor in building awareness around your message. Today, I'm going to focus on the process rather than the commercial viability. You do need some sort of order to get things going.

1. The Best Way To Have a Great Idea That Resonates With An Audience

The famous author, Isaac Asimov, wrote every morning regardless. Linus Pauling the Nobel Peace Prize winner said "you just have lots of ideas and throw away the bad ones". Your ability to develop an idea, look at it from different angles, explore various ways to deliver the message are just as important as the message itself. Polishing an idea helps with structure, logic flow, hone simplicity and determine the best angle to share an idea.

It often works with a pen and blank piece of paper but you choose how you capture an idea. I start with a stream of consciousness. I write everything in my head down including "irrelevant things" like "take out the trash". The key is volume not perfection and get what is on your mind on paper. It clears your brain of clutter and captures nuggets you can arrange into a cohesive message

2. Organise It Into Headings and Subheadings

Once you have everything down, give it a place in your mind (and your audiences mind). As you order your content, examples and analogies often come to mind. Write those down too.

The real test is "would it make sense to someone unfamiliar with your message?" Take your headings and present that to a "stranger". Does the shape and direction of your headings make sense to them? This is a good test of simplicity and order. Don't worry about the details and examples (yet)

Get absolutely clear on your message. Could you say it as a single, compelling sentence? If it's not clear in your head. How do you expect it to be clear in others?

3. Make It Resonate with Others

An idea that doesn't resonate with the listener will not go far. Your message needs to be meaningful as well as functional. For instance, everyone knows to eat will and do lots of exercise. Not everyone does it. Just because people know something , doesn't mean they will do something. Knowledge without meaning is just facts. This is where storytelling as a skill (not a process) is important. By process I mean following the storytelling "rules" for stortytelling that people often share. A common one is "hero's journey". Following the rules doesn't guarantee impact if you can't tell the story well. Your job as a communicator is to relate your idea with the audience so they see the relevance to them.

4. (Optional) but Valuable Step

While your message needs to have impact overall, you may want to plan when you create the impact and the scale of that impact. It's a bit like an action movie. Big drama at the start and the end and lower scale but valuable impact in between to keep the energy high and engaging. Not all messages need to be an action movie. You could be "comedy" (light and entertaining), drama (compelling but not "in your face") etc.

With practice, you can actually do this in real time as you evaluate how people are responding to your message as you say it.

5. Helping People Realise the Importance of Your Message

There is a difference between what you say and what it means to your audience. In the same way that people may know what you do but not value what you do. Helping people realise the scope, scale or significance of your message is key to getting them to act on your message.

To do this, think about 2nd order consequences i.e the consequence of the consequence. For example, if you don't get a good nights sleep, initially the impact is low but if you continually fail to sleep well, it affects your alertness and thinking then increases your chance of obesity, heart attack, diabetes etc (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuIMqhT8DM). Help your audience see the ultimate affect of not taking your advice.

6. Test Your Message

This is where the rubber hits the road. Go out to a low key, low importance (relatively speaking) audience and see how they respond. You are looking for the people who DON'T engage. There will always be a small number of people that think your idea is ok. Watch how they respond, sense the energy in the room etc. If they love it, don't assume it's ready for the big time (yet). A professional speaker may test content around 200 times (or parts of it) before they ask for money for that talk. During this process you're testing your "muscle memory" around how well you know your talk, how to handle the audience, how to test saying the same thing in different ways. It's about getting "match fit" with your content so it flows without you having to think about it. If it doesn't flow and you aren't practiced, it will sound wooden and insincere.

7. If You're Serious About Public Speaking

If you expect to get paid to speak, I highly recommend you get your talk professionally reviewed. Ideally by someone familiar with your target audience and understands the business end of speaking, not just the craft of speaking. By business, I'm referring to understanding what the market is doing, what it's value to the market could be and be honest with you about what will work. Taking advice from friends, peers or advocates, while good for the ego, are not qualified or objective enough to give feedback around the micro details that take your talk from good to great. Excellence will help you stand out. I'm sure you've seen plenty of "good" talks that you've already forgotten.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. What do I do with my hands/face? - Don't worry about that yet. If you have the content under your belt, are clear about your message and resonate with your own message, your hands and face will know what to do
2. What about slides? Unless your idea is very complex or you have visuals "to die for" (think photos in a recipe book or photos of an expedition), slides can be a distraction. Unless it add significant value. It's a candidate for a distraction
3. Do I need to be funny? I think wit and humor help but you don't need to be a professional comedian. Use it sparingly unless you are a naturally funny person
4. How much do you charge? (Oh, that's my question, not yours??). I do help people develop their narrative, compelling position and craft for impact. Let's chat if that is where you want to go.

About me:

Jon works with Leaders and Change-makers to understand strategic influence.

While leading TEDxMelbourne, he saw the YouTube data for, "what causes someone to pause, rewind or abandon a TED Talk?". He combined this data to better understand how to design for empathy, engagement and simplify complexity.

Jon has been the Licensee for TEDxMelbourne since 2009 and is a past National President for Professional Speakers Australia

If Jon has any "spare" time, he works with Youth, Youth at Risk and Diversity and Inclusion programs of major international organisations