One Cool Trick for Speakers

One of the most common questions I get from speakers is "How do I secure more speaking opportunities?"

One of the easiest ways to get new opportunities is to knock every speaking engagement you get out of the ballpark. If someone isn't sprinting down the aisle to book you as you exit stage left to thunderous applause, maybe you need to work on your delivery, what you deliver and ask if you were truly delivering the goods.

Harsh? I don't think so. Because, I'm not asking for the moon. In fact, I'm like a lot of audience members. I'm generally happy with a speaker if I can walk away from their talk with just one new thing.

When I develop new talks (whether it is a speech for a conference or event, a corporate gig, or one of the Innovation Women bi-weekly Knowledge Sessions), I always look for a place to add One Cool Trick.

What is "One Cool Trick"?

One Cool Trick is my shorthand for something unique and actionable. (Even if your speech is a thought leadership oriented, you can still deliver a Cool Trick.) If someone does an online search for your topic, would your Cool Trick come up? If it is truly a Cool Trick, probably not.

One Cool Trick could be giving the audience a new way to look at something or a different process to solve a problem. Maybe it is a shortcut to results. Maybe it is something that people in other industries or functions do that could be adapted to this industry or this function.

Tell the audience exactly how to do it and show them how it worked for you. (This isn't the place to make them go buy your book or download something.)

Awesome Cool Tricks make audience members scramble for a notepad or frantically take notes on their phone because your method is something they want to try when they are back home. The best Cool Tricks are often things that sound counter-intuitive or not quite believable. ("What? It can't be that easy? Can it?")

How do you develop a Cool Trick?

If you work in any field for many years, you probably already have a long list of tips and tricks you could share. The challenge is finding a Cool Trick that elicits audience "ooohs" and "ahhhhs". Know what's out there from other experts and what's easily found. You don't want to be making a big deal out of something that's on every list of tips and tricks.

• Always be learning and sharing. New tools. New platforms. New features. For a time, several years ago, one of my Cool Tricks was a now long gone LinkedIn app feature called "Find Nearby." I would tell an audience that while they knew who I was, I didn't know who was in the audience and they didn't know each other. If they activated the LinkedIn Find Nearby feature RIGHT THEN they could meet each other and network. (I usually saved this trick for the end of my presentation because once they started meeting each other, I had lost them.)

(Note: Cool Tricks rarely stay Cool Tricks for long as more people become aware of something.)

• Educate yourself on the audience's pains and challenges. Solve a pain or frustration, even a small one, with a Cool Trick and you are a hero. How do you find out their pains? Ask.
• Look to adjacent tasks. Take a process one step farther than ordinary and incorporate additional steps. Go above and beyond what people expect.
• Rename/Rebrand. Sometimes it is enough to rebrand or rename something to make it easily remembered or implemented.
• Give them questions to ask. Sometimes a Cool Trick is simple...it's a question that they can ask themselves or others. For example, when I talk to people just starting on their speaking journey, I tell them to ask friends and colleagues questions like, 1) What one thing would you always come to me for advice on over and above anyone else? Or, 2) If I wrote a business book, what would it be called and what would it be about? The answers to these questions can help a wannabe speaker zero in on the area where others consider them expert.