The Hidden Cost of Winging It with Presentations

Are you an 11th hour presentation prepper? Pride yourself on your knack for ‘speaking off the cuff’ on stage? Consider yourself charismatic? 

While these qualities can help you navigate all kinds of scenarios, if you've developed a habit of preparing your talk at the last minute, then there’s a good chance your message is getting muddy.

Consequently, making it difficult for your audience to decide if they want more from you, because you’re forcing them to weed through stories, details, and ideas that aren’t necessarily relevant to them. 

But what if you decided to strategically plan how to land the plane on your next talk, so your audience felt deeply seen and heard and you felt confident you’re on the right track to hit your goals?

Well, I know what would happen, and my instinct is you do too. Your next talk would have a more tangible ROI than praise, claps, or kudos. 

Tune in and hear:

• Why winging it on stage is an ego play, not a strategic move
• What your audience wants from you every single time
• Why being prepared isn’t the same as being boring or scripted
• The reputation and revenue risk
• Whether you might be a ‘Winging it Wanda’ 
• How to start preparing for the wins you want from the stage

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇
https://heathersager.com/episode210

Chapters

• 0:00 Hidden Costs of Winging Your Words
• 10:00 Clear Messaging in Presentations
• 21:54 Crafting Compelling Presentations and Authentic Delivery
• 31:53 Preparedness and Self-Reflection in Public Speaking
• 41:32 Building an Effective Speaking Plan

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

And the challenge that we have here. The reason why this is really a hidden cost is because, as entrepreneurs, we want that in our speakers. We want the tangible, we want the medium, we don't want the waste of time, but the disconnect that happens here is the issue is when we're in the audience. It is a lack of knowledge. It isn't a gap, and we don't know what to do. It is a but we just don't want to, or we haven't prioritized it yet, or we don't believe that we actually can. This is the podcast for the entrepreneur who wants to make a big impact, who doesn't shy away from hard work but also wants to enjoy life along the way. Hi, I'm Heather Sager, former executive turned entrepreneur, and I've spent the last 20 years working with premium brands on sales, marketing and communication, and I've learned that when you become a magnet with your message, you only need a hint of hustle to achieve your goals. Get ready to be inspired and ignited each week with tangible strategies on sales, speaking, marketing and so much more. This is the hint of hustle podcast. Let's go Well. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another episode.

Speaker 1: 1:37

I feel like today I'm recording in the middle of a circus. Do you ever have days like that where you feel like there is so much chaos going on around you but you have to get things done. Well, today is one of those days for me and it's actually I mean pretty perfect. On today's topic, we're talking about the hidden cost of winging it with your words when giving presentation talks, even podcast interviews, or even being on a panel. I think there's this badge of honor that comes when you kind of have it like a knack for like being impromptu, kind of being good, thinking on your feet, being that charismatic person who can turn on the charm without a lot of prep. I can tell you, for years I identified with this kind of persona. I got really, really good and still to this day, I'm very, very good at presenting on the fly on pretty much any topic within my skill set or business scope and, to be perfectly honest with you, I never saw this as a bad thing. In fact, I saw it as an amazing thing. And over the years of speaking on so many stages and working with so many other business owners and trainers and speakers, I learned that having the identity of thinking on your feet, of being a really good impromptu speaker, it just being so good live. It's actually more focused on ego versus service and I'm going to break that down today and potentially poke the bear of your ego and your relationship with speaking on stage. But please know this is a hard topic for me too, because if you're like me and you enjoy speaking and you are really good at prepping the night before or speaking off the cuff that there is a time and place, my friend.

Speaker 1: 3:46

But what I'm going to argue today is that your voice in your business, as the face of your business, as the leader in your business, as the head of marketing in your business, most likely or at least the person in charge of brand strategy and kind of the face to get your stuff out there it is absolutely critical that you have a plan, that you understand the power of your words and you also understand the hidden cost of cluttering your words or using the wrong words. And I'm not talking about getting canceled for saying the wrong thing, although that is a very true reality and honestly, that comes from winging it and not being thoughtful or careful with your communication. But today I'm talking about more of the legitimate costs to your business, of what happens when you wing it with your sales message. What happens when you wing it with a big opportunity on a podcast or speaking on someone else's stage, even if you go in with a plan, if you are left cramming the night before or stressing it out or reviewing your notes or writing scripts or anything, up until the last minute? If you've ever done that before or you find that as a repeated pattern, this is the episode for you. And no, I'm not going to tell you that you need to be scripted. I hate scripts. I don't use them. They make me sound like an idiot and I would never expect anyone to use them. Who if they have the same relationship with script. But what I am saying is you can learn to use your superpower of being unscripted and impromptu. You can use, learn how to use it in a really, really strategic way where you can be seemingly impromptu, seemingly off the cuff, my friend, every step of the way. You know what the hell you are saying, when you're saying it, why you're saying it for good reason. So let's go ahead and dive in.

Speaker 1: 5:48

At the time of this recording, as I mentioned, little circus happening in my house. Little quick update here. We're still home for summer break and I am so envy for those of you who live in Arizona and the other regions whose school is already going back into session. The quiet and peace that I crave when the kids are in school. I love summertime because it's like a real lull. But summertime it's difficult to do quiet, focused activities and to take the advice that I'm sharing today around being more strategic and planning ahead. That is hard.

Speaker 1: 6:24

So, first of all, big reality check. For those of you who are juggling a lot of balls in your business like big old balls, you have this everywhere, right? If you were like I literally do not have time to plan for things, heather, like it is, fly by the seat of my pants every single day. I feel you, I totally feel you and I totally understand. And that is where I think, in some ways, in our business, we need to be very mindful of the commitments that we make. In fact, I highly recommend tuning into last week's episode where we talk about whether or not free speaking is a smart and strategic move for your business, how and when to say yes to opportunities and, more importantly, how to gracefully say no should an opportunity not be aligned for you. So check out that one If you find yourself constantly preparing last minute for talks and you don't have time to prepare. You have to ask the question are you truly the best person to serve the audience? For that, I want you to tune back into last week's episode, episode 209, where I talk about the harsh truth of you being the best person for the job If you really can't say yes. But you're wanting to go back and listen to that message, because that dovetails perfectly into today's message.

Speaker 1: 7:42

But let's check about the temptation of unpreparedness. You see, what I find so often with business owners it's a yet to meet a business owner who has a hard time talking about their expertise. Now, let me qualify that by saying pretty much a lot of business owners all of them, I talk to have a hard time talking about their expertise in a way that drives sales or in a way that makes them sound like the authority, like they're trying to talk about it in a certain way. But in everyday conversation there's no shyness, no bashfulness. It's like we can talk all the time and in fact I giggle all the time because I meet so many entrepreneurs that are like give me the mic, give me my own television show, give me whatever I will, yada, yada, yada all fricking day long. And I hear you.

Speaker 1: 8:34

I'm not surprisingly, I am not a huge talker in my personal life. I am a little bit more of a reserved person. I am not a huge fan of meeting and talking to strangers about random things. That might not be a surprise for you. Listen to the show. I talk about how I don't like small talk. Not only is it hard for me with a hearing loss I wear hearing aids but it's just exhausting with my own energetic personality. So I am not one of those people that can talk all the fricking time. But when I am lit up about something and I am on a mission around a specific topic, I'm really good at it and I love it and it brings me joy and it brings me energy.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Now the thing is is, if you're a business owner, the chances are you've had a lot of experience with a variety of things, even as you've launched your business. You've learned about email marketing. You've learned about the tech side of that. Maybe, like me, you've recently built your own website on a new platform and now you're a pseudo designer expert. Cringe, sorry, I'll desert her to the world. I do not consider myself good at it by any means Thank goodness for templates. Anyways, we wear a lot of hats and I see this little phenomenon. That's happened a lot in the online marketing space. You may have seen this too. This may have been you, and that's OK. It caught up with me.

Speaker 1: 10:00

You start in the online space with a certain level of expertise and then, as you get down the road into programs, meeting a lot of other online business owners or other entrepreneurs who sell information products or other similar things, there is a tendency for people to go, oh, I've learned a lot about this, so now I actually want to teach more of this online business thing. It's like, the more that you learn, the more you want to teach the thing that you learn, and there's no problem with that. When I started in the online space, I thought I was going to work with people in corporate, which was my background, but I had been working with entrepreneurs, as I was in corporate working with entrepreneurs for years. So me pivoting over to working with entrepreneurs wasn't a surprise to me, but it was very interesting how quickly I developed a skill set in the online space and then wanted to make that my ideal, my perfect customer. That was the people I was attracting.

Speaker 1: 10:48

But the challenge with this coming back to the unpreparedness is oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, we are so limited for time we don't have a lot of space or capacity in our day because our schedules are slammed with one on one work or trying to catch up on a program we're in or serve our existing clients, or write the next email or the next blog, or keep our kids from jumping into the fireplace. I don't know. I mean, that's a very real thing, probably for some people, probably for me this winter, since we have an actual fireplace with fire in it. That'll be fun with a newborn baby. So more to come on that one.

Speaker 1: 11:29

But there is a tendency that, because we know and have had experience in a variety of things that it's fairly easy to talk about, there is a temptation to get away with the talk about whatever comes up in your mind. Now, I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to have a fairly short attention span. I also have a tendency to talk about the things that are most pressing now. So here is the challenge that comes with unpreparedness and honestly, this was one of the biggest signals that I learned around oh crap, this winging it thing might not be serving my audience or my business, and that is when you wing it, when you speak off the cuff, you are far more likely to talk about things that are pressing now, about recent experiences, recent conversations, which you might be thinking well, heather, isn't that good. You want to bring in stories and recent stuff? Yes, but the challenge of this is, because of the infatuation of the recent, the sexy of the new, what happens is we often forget to include the cornerstone content that's necessary to meet our audience where they are, because what happens is a lot of times the newness, what's top of mind for us, what's exciting for us, us being the business owner in the niche who's well advanced, maybe talking to people that are a little bit more advanced, maybe graduates to your program, clients who've been with you a while, people who get the lingo, get the language and are already into the transformation. And the challenge is when you're constantly speaking about things that are familiar and top of mind for you as the entrepreneur. We juggle a lot of hats, wear a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 13:38

The likelihood that the content and substance of your message really meets your audience where they are is hit or miss, and this is why it's so important for you as a speaker, as an educator, as a trainer, to understand the importance of clear messaging. Now, I don't specifically mean sales messaging well, that is important too but any kind of clear message. When you speak, every time you open your mouth to speak, you should have a really clear idea of what's my goal here. What am I trying to talk about? What is the core message that I'm trying to come across? And the challenge for most speakers who wing it is they have to word from it all of this language just to get to their mother fricking point. Guilty. I am so guilty. I am an external verbal processor. I have to warn my team that I am just thinking out loud. Please do not take action of anything that's about to fall out of my mouth until we get to the good stuff.

Speaker 1: 14:45

The thing is, a lot of times, those who are good at winging it are really just good at processing their thoughts in real time, and the challenge of that is, if you are processing your ideas, you're bearing the lead. Have you ever heard of that saying before? What's happening here is when other people are listening to your message, they're now having to sift through all of the extra stuff you're bringing to the party to understand which point is important. What should I remember, what should I take action on? And if you've ever had the situation before where your audience was like, wow, that was action pack, wow, that was so informational, wow, that was so awesome, that was so much. I'm so inspired yet they still don't take the action that you desire, like jump it on your email list or purchasing your programs or book you to speak at another event, if you're not getting the business results you're after, it's probably because your message is getting muddy. Yeah, I know that's really really hard to take in.

Speaker 1: 15:53

Back when I was in college, one of my professors like the second day of school, we played this game and she brought in this tray that had all of these objects on it and I'm fairly sure they were candy themed, like candy bars, bags of candy, different snacks, different sweets and stuff. So she brought in this tray and I don't even remember the point of this activity, I just remember doing the activity. So she brought in the tray and they'd walk around the room. We had to look at it, we'd memorize the tray and then they would remove an object from the tray, shuffle things around and then we had to remember what's missing, and then we would go through that a couple different times. Again, I don't remember the point of the activity. There was something around. It was a marketing class, so definitely had something to do with marketing.

Speaker 1: 16:39

The point of the story that I'm gonna make for you is this asking your audience to remember the objects of your talk and then to remember which ones are critical is kind of a wild ask, my friend. So there's this thing in our brains that I'm not gonna use the complex language, let's just make this very plain spoken here. We all have this area of our brain that tells us is this relevant to me or not? In the learning and development space, I call this WIIFM. What's in it for me? I always cringed and rolled my eyes at that thought because I was like stop it. Old people with your trainer hats and trying to sound cool, that sounds so dumb. Now here I am as an old person trainer, here I am and I still sound so uncool and dumb, but we're gonna run into it. So this channel that everybody operates on, what's in it for me?

Speaker 1: 17:32

People have this when they are listening to you speak, whether it's an inspirational talk, a tangible workshop, whatever that looks like. Maybe it's the training inside your program. They have this sensor where they're constantly filtering out what you say. And the more stuff aka the more extra, the more impromptu rambles and external processes to get to your point, the more side tangents and side rows and extra fun that you're bringing to the party, the more you're forcing their antenna to say is this relevant, is it not relevant? Is it relevant, is it not relevant? And you're relying on their antenna to make those decisions.

Speaker 1: 18:16

And the difficulty when you wing it in presentations typically winging it presentations lack the structure necessary to help the audience make an educated decision around next steps. Whew, a little fired saying that. I hope you're with me right now. What I just said is, when you wing it, your presentations lack the structure necessary to help your audience get to the point where they can make an educated decision of where to go next. This is important, as you can imagine, when you're a business owner, using your voice and showing up on a stage, whether it's a literal stage, a virtual stage, a like a podcast, or even a live or even hell, even like an Instagram reel.

Speaker 1: 19:02

Not gonna go down that route because I am not a social media person, but every time you grab the mic, you are an ambassador for your brand. You have the opportunity to dial in your message, to connect with your ideal client, to further along your business and help them with their transformation Is an opportunity for you to educate, to entertain, to connect with your audience. And when your message is unclear, you are making it more difficult for your ideal customer to follow you along in this journey, to want to work with you. So when you don't prepare and I'm gonna address what preparation is here in just a moment, because it might not be what you think I'm not talking about like overly scripted and overly planned out, hell, you don't even have to have slides. Yup, I said it. So that's not what I'm talking about here.

Speaker 1: 19:59

What I am saying is being more thoughtful and intentional with what you bring to the party and training yourself to declutter how you speak and the way you speak. It makes an impact on your business's bottom line, because when your message is more potent, more compelling, more captivating, more effective, you make more sales, you drive more leads. People remember your message, they talk about you. When others bring up hey, I need somebody to help me in this XYZ area, they think of you, so it makes business sense for us to put our egos aside and say, all right, we might be good, but how much better would we be if we put a little training behind it and learned how to be less rambly, less off the cuff and more intentional with our words.

Speaker 1: 20:55

Now you might be thinking, all right, but, heather, I really hate it when I'm sitting in a presentation and someone is like overly prepared, like it's just boring. And let me address that for a moment because I have to talk about that. Authenticity and being present in the moment is not the same as being boring and scripted. I'm so sorry I said boring and scripted, but yeah, here's the problem. What you're comparing it to is you're making the idea of being scripted or being prepared as being robotic, as reading, as trying to remember what they were trying to say. That is not an issue with preparedness, that is an issue with perfectionism. They're trying to memorize a script versus make a point. It's also an issue of delivery.

Speaker 1: 21:54

Case in point let's talk about good and bad acting. My friend, we all know the great Hollywood actors who we could just gobble up all day long, because they make you cry, they make you laugh, they make you feel all the emotions. And then we all know cringy bad acting we do. It's just like what is happening here. Hello, hallmark Channel Christmas time, which I laugh because we love if you haven't been with me for Christmas yet we love the Hallmark Channel Christmas time in our house. And then all the cheesy Christmas movies like they're so warming and familiar and we love them, and the acting is fricking terrible. The difference, honestly, it's not even the cheesy script, it's the acting.

Speaker 1: 22:43

There is a level of believability and presence when words come out of your mouth and the body language that goes with it, you know whether or not you believe and feel what someone is saying. And if you're thinking, I have to be impromptu, I can't overly plan because I lose my mojo. It's because you've never practiced bringing your mojo to the party when you have a plan and, my friend, that's just a skill that you haven't yet mastered. So I want you to separate out this idea of scripted or preparedness. It really has nothing to do with presence and authenticity. What you love about yourself on stage, when you're at your best, is that you're fully present, that you're charismatic, that you are charming, that you are jiving with your audience. That's the persona that you want to duplicate. It isn't about you thinking on your feet, it's the carefree presence that you bring to the party. That's what makes it electrifying for you and others in your audience.

Speaker 1: 23:50

So we need to release this idea that that delivery, that captivation, has to come at a sacrifice to planning content. They are two different things. And if you want to be a very effective speaker, if you want to ensure that your opportunities create more opportunities and drive leads and sales into your business, if you want to be the kind of person that gets recognized, remembered and referred every time you speak, you have to learn not just the language to use, not just the content to use. You have to learn how to deliver, and that is something I'm super passionate about. We have a lot of episodes on that delivery piece, but the presence comes from place of knowing what you're talking about. So let's talk about crafting compelling presentations. You're like all right, what's the content? I'm curious. I'm like picking up what you're putting down here, heather.

Speaker 1: 24:47

So crafting compelling presentations, there is a structure to it. Now, this is a structure that I teach inside my program, the Signature Talk Accelerator. It's not just about a signature talk, it's building a damn good talk that you can use on repeat every time you speak. My whole philosophy is let's build a damn good talk once and then rinse, repeat and refine. Then let's add additional talks to your business.

Speaker 1: 25:12

I think every business owner should have an ecosystem of talks three, four talks that are their go-to presentations. It's what they niche down. They want to be that well-known authority expert on, but you have to start with one damn good talk. So, going into a compelling presentation, what we have to think about is what does our audience? What do they know right now? Where are they pushing back? What do they want? What do they not want? We really have to start by exploring where our audience is when we meet them on the stage. That is point blank, number one. And you might be thinking well, heather, that sounds really freaking simple, and it is.

Speaker 1: 25:53

The challenge is when we are winning it. The majority of entrepreneurs, experts, trainers that I work with, where they focus first and foremost is what they're comfortable with and what they know. So they share tips, tactics, strategies, recent ideas, recent things going on. They want that newness, that novelty, that tactical and tangible. The stuff they eat for breakfast, that's what they want to geek out and talk about, and the challenge that we have here. The reason why this is really a hidden cost is because, as entrepreneurs, we want that in our speakers. We want the tangible, we want the needy, we don't want the waste of time.

Speaker 1: 26:37

But the disconnect that happens here is the issue is when we're in the audience. It is the lack of knowledge. It isn't a gap and we don't know what to do. It is a, but we just don't want to, or we haven't prioritized it yet, or we don't believe that we actually can. Oh, that's a good one. The gap is we forget that when we jump on stage, especially when we're experts and we're good at winging it, we jump on and we think we're going to make our case and we're going to wow them by what we know, that we will somehow be the person to make the change. But the challenge is we're learning about the psychology of the audience and just human behavior in general.

Speaker 1: 27:21

So crafting a compelling presentation is more than just about your method. It's more than just about your interesting taken perspective. It's about understanding how to unpack your message in a way that meets your audience where they want or where they are, addresses the true limiting beliefs and objections about themselves and the content and what's possible and then weaves them into an action plan that's actually freaking doable and relevant. That's what's creating compelling presentations are about. It's part psychology and I don't mean like Jedi mind trick psychology where you've ever been to presentation before and they're trying these like sketchy tactics on you when you're like bro, don't even. It's not about that. It's making and helping your audience feel seen, feel heard, feel valued, feel truly understood.

Speaker 1: 28:19

In fact, one of my absolute favorite things about being a really good wordsmith, being really good at presentations, being really good at this compelling presentation piece is my favorite compliment is when somebody tells me Heather, you finally put language to something I've been struggling with for years. You, finally you put language. That's exactly what's going on with me. You pegged me. That is the absolute best compliment you know, followed by with the they're very excited about the action plan. Right, but helping other people feel seen, feel understood and feel valued. That is a huge part of your role on stage and oftentimes, when you're winging it, your orientation tends to be more on your own knowledge and, again, more of the recent experiences you've had right before getting on stage. So your audience, in order for you to be more compelling, more compassionate. It's a lot of seas compelling compassionate, conviction conversion. We can do like a whole lineup of seas in business, in fact I have them, there's nine. I teach in the six or talk I sell it here.

Speaker 1: 29:30

But what your audience really needs from you is that presence, is they need to feel heard and seen and valued. Because how often are you in a big audience where you just feel like you're one of the thousands? Right, they're saying like, hey, you guys, you wall, they're talking about thousands of people and we're in a program that it's hundreds or thousands and it's easy to slink back. But when someone truly sees you, when somebody gets where you are, you lean forward in your chair and you feel far more liberated and excited to take action. Because you then see that it's not just generic advice, it's actually advice for you. It could work for you Flipping that around. As the facilitator on that stage, it's your responsibility to create that feeling which speaks to.

Speaker 1: 30:25

My next point is trust and credibility. When you are a speaker on stage and you know your shit like the back of your hand, you're talking about systems and methods, you're talking about client experiences. You're talking about the language that makes an audience feel really seen, heard and understood. You're really, really present. It's very apparent that you've been doing this for a long time. It's very apparent that you've carefully crafted a message for just them, even if it's the hundredth time you've said the same damn talk.

Speaker 1: 31:04

When your audience feels that you are well prepared and you know your shit, they trust you so much more. Think about it. Have you ever been to a presentation before where it's the opposite with the speaker, where they seem flighty and they've misplaced their notes or they keep saying I don't know or I'll have to check with you? And not to say that there's going to be times when people ask you questions and you don't know the answer and you don't lie. But if they're constantly just shifting gears or contradicting themselves or forgetting their line of, have you ever had this? Actually, I just did it. I started a sentence and then, halfway through, went a different path. If they continually re-shift the directions or go and side-touch, it's constantly never making their way back to their original point. That's a sign of winning.

Speaker 1: 31:53

And your audience, while they might be captivated in the moment, there's this undercurrent of are they really present? Do they really know that trust and credibility comes from you demonstrating your competence, and not just competence on your expertise, but competence understanding the people in the room. It is so important for you to understand. My friend. Your confidence soars when you have a well-organized message. It also shifts the perception of your audience. They see you a lot more confidently. They see you more confident. They trust skyrockets in you.

Speaker 1: 32:34

Now, one of the things that I noticed that happens a lot with this idea of impromptu speaking is there is a false confidence that comes in. I got to talk to you like real-time confessions, my friend. People know that I am a confident speaker. This is no qualms, no hiding it, I am a full, I'm a speaker. I'm a full-time teaching other people how to speak. This is what I do being on a microphone. I've been on a microphone for 20 years. I am very, very competent and really good at it. But what would surprise you if I tell you that for the last 15 years maybe a little more than that, or a little less than that, anyways, not to say the majority of that time even though I was exceptionally confident on stage, what happened after I got off stage was a quiet struggle that no one else saw and no one would ever guess. And if you're listening to this episode, I would bet that you have thought with the same internal struggle demon, whatever you want to call it, you name it, my friend.

Speaker 1: 33:57

What happens is when you're really good at being on stage or hell, even if you're kind of good or you just have a presentation where you're like, yeah, rocked it, and you leave. You have that high and that high might last for a moment when people are smiling, clapping, giving praise that was so awesome. Usually, the awesome is pretty generic. You're amazing, that was awesome, I just loved it. It was so energetic. Just generic words, that's still kind right, but just praise.

Speaker 1: 34:27

And then what happens is when you leave the room or you take your seat or you sign out from Zoom, the real audience critic jumps in, and that one is you. It's the inner voice of going. You forgot to use the case study. Or I can't believe you've said that word again. We talked about this, we agree. You weren't going to say that word again. It makes you sound stupid. But there you go. Or that inner voice says I can't believe you fumbled on the ask Like frickin, a like of that part of all the things you like, what the frick? Or whatever other little nagging, bitchy voice that comes in for you it might come at is okay, that felt fun. But like, did they like it? Did that resonate? Did that work? Wait, I haven't gotten any emails yet. Or, oh, I wonder what the host thought that wasn't helpful, like, yay, great, they said good, but I don't know anything else.

Speaker 1: 35:25

This unknowing of how it went, this immediate jump to judgment that happens when you're a wing in it, wanda, when you're a wing in it off the cuff, whatever you want to call it, the biggest struggle, the biggest hiding cost, is the time that inner critic comes in and drags you down. I should have planned more. I should have prepared more. I should have said this I shouldn't have done that. I should have, should have, should have All of that nagging come in. And I'm saying this and I even think about this. I'm having a little bit of this moment now going. What if they are thinking that? But everyone, this happens to everyone.

Speaker 1: 36:16

But what I have found in my experience, both personally and those with my clients, the people who seem the most confident on stage are the ones who have the loudest bitchiest after math voice once the curtain comes down. And the only way that I have found to quiet that voice, to finally put a muzzle on it, is for me to get my shit together and actually listen to the truth in it. For what it was, it wasn't about making me feel like crap. That voice was actually advocating for the people in that room Because my ego was saying I don't have to play up. I can do this at four o'clock in the morning than I've before. I've done presentations where I have finished at 4.30am to deliver at 8am and I've rocked it and afterwards the high wore off to the oh. I can't believe I did it again.

Speaker 1: 37:19

That voice made me feel like crap, but when I stripped away the emotion out of it and really steered the feedback it gave me in the face, what I realized was I have trained myself to be this is, at the time an 11th hour person, a last minute person, and while that was fun for me to own at the time, it actually wasn't the best experience for my audience Because even though the content was fly, even though it was so engaging and so captivating, I could have used better examples. I could have had more strategic pauses, I could have had some data points added, I could have asked some better engaging questions. Now notice I said I could have. I'm not saying I should have, I'm not crapping on my performance, but when my goal on a stage is to serve my audience while achieving my strategic goals, aka leads and growth in my business, I have a responsibility to look critically at every element of my business, including myself as the speaker and face of the brand, and ask some tough questions and saying am I bringing it my best? And the truth was I wasn't. And the truth, I think, is the same for you.

Speaker 1: 38:42

When you operate on this last minute planning, relying on your charismatic capabilities, you are robbing your audience of the best experience with you. Now let me say this I get it, my friend. You are not going to be, like, all the way prepared for every presentation. In fact, I never feel fully prepared for any presentations. There is an element of like, all right, let's just fricking do it. However, when you learn how to plan in a way that works for you and it serves the socks off your audience, the mojo you bring to that party, it is truly magnetic. When you not only know your shit but you bring the shit with you. I mean, you did a good way, but like when you bring it with you to the stage and you know it, holy crap, like people throw their money at you In, metaphorically speaking. Well, sometimes literally, I had somebody once actually throw their credit card and say take it. Already many times. But even if you're not like selling from the stage, right, it's.

Speaker 1: 39:50

It's more of this idea that when you prepare the confidence and swagger that you bring, that you don't even realize Right and well, you, you know. You know you've had situations before where you've rocked it and you know you earned that rock in it. You knew it wasn't luck, you knew it wasn't winging it, you worked your ass off to make that moment count and boy did you do it. Those feel so good. That earned it, that earned that pride. To earn that confidence, to earn that moment where you're shining. There is nothing like it. And that's my ask for you today, my friend, is when you think about all of these opportunities you have for you to use your voice, are you bringing the fire? That's the question.

Speaker 1: 40:39

Now I want to be really mindful here. You cannot use this as an excuse To hide. You can't use this as an excuse to now go. Well, now I need to plan, I need to cancel all my gigs. I need to not pitch myself because Heather says I need to plan more. So I need to go back and no plan.

Speaker 1: 40:54

Let me be clear here. With my clients, we talk about planning intentionally, but the goal is for us to have a plan good enough we call it the shitty rough draft to get to the stage. The goal is to get a really well structured talk that serves the socks of your audience, to help them feel seen, heard, valued, understood. We have to have a version of that that you're going to feel is like a piece of crap, but it's going to be really good. I promise you got to get to that first version and start testing it on stage to build your confidence and to refine it with feedback for how it's landing. That is a process, but if you live win this expectation, that okay.

Speaker 1: 41:32

Heather now says I need to plan more. Therefore, I need to jump into a google doc and type everything out, which is not what I said. But if you go there, then you're going to live in that and you're going to hide and you're going to make your voice Smaller and you're going to make your presence smaller and that for sure is not serving your audience. So what I'm telling you is this is a moment where we're going to build the plane as we fly. And maybe you've been building the plane as you fly for this long in your business, where you've been guest speaking or we're doing interviews and you're you're prepping a little bit, but you're like I don't actually know what makes a really effective message, so I'm just kind of winging it. Winging it with a plane that really worked in that whole analogy here.

Speaker 1: 42:14

Anyways, what we're saying is we're not going to land the plane and start over. What we're going to do is build upon what you're already doing. So I'm not asking you to stop or slow down, but I am asking you actually yes, slow down a little bit, be a little bit more thoughtful the next time that you show up and speak. Can we ask ourselves some barely intentional questions about our audience? Now, side note, if you want to turn these speaking opportunities into money makers for your business, you can check out my latest free guide that dropped last week, the profitable and purposeful speaking guide, where I'm going to teach you seven strategies for how to turn Free or unpaid or low paid speaking opportunities into money in the bank. So you can go check that out. We will drop the link in the show notes. So that is one way to get started. If you want to learn how to build a more effective message, definitely jump on the waitlist, my friend, for the next round with the signature talk accelerator. We'll also include that link in the show notes. These are things you can start working on, but let's talk right now.

Speaker 1: 43:08

Let me give you a couple tangible things that you can do today. So number one I want you to really visit in yourself what makes you feel the most confident when you show up on stage. I talked about how there's this um myth that authenticity means that you cannot be planned. That's completely bogus, but I want you to really feel what's the most confident for you. Do you feel more confident when you do have a plan? Do you tend to lean more into scripts? And if you do, do you have a tendency to get all up in your head trying to remember the script and kind of forget the point? I want you to explore for yourself. I'm going to ask you to do a journal exercise, which I know might sound super cheesy, but you're going to freaking love it. I want you to write down for yourself how do I show up when I'm at my best. What level of preparation have I put in when I have showed up at my best? What could I do, moving forward in a simple way, to bring the best when I show up and speak? Secondly, if you are a scripter, or even if you not, I want you to adopt this phrase memorize the transitions, familiarize the content. Okay, what do I mean by this? This is my number one. Things that I coach on with my private clients and students inside my programs.

Speaker 1: 44:26

Where people get all up in their head and they lose all of their mojo is they're trying to remember what to say, and I want you to remember it's not about exactly the words you're using. It's the point you're trying to get across Now, where most people get stuck, where most winging it ramblers kind of fall into the ditch which is in between the meat and potatoes. Their talk it's in the transitions. It's when you're going from your opening story into your here's what we're going to talk about today. It's when you're going from point number one to point number two, or from your educational content into q&a, or from q&a into your pitch or your clothes. Your ask it's trying to figure out how to land the freaking plane at the end of the talk. Those are all transitions and the challenge is you're creating more confusion and clutter in your talks by not having a plan For those transitionary moments.

Speaker 1: 45:18

So this is my juicy negative today's episode if you take nothing away. Hopefully you took a lot of things away but, more importantly, you're fired up to start being a little more intentional With your message. But I want you to start thinking about how can it be more intentional with those transition moments. Those are when the filler words come in. Those are when the random side tangents come in. Those were the rambles, the convoluted, random extra. How can you tighten up your transitions so that you bring your focus more to your central points of your talk? Okay, I cannot wait to hear how this message today landed I.

Speaker 1: 45:55

This is a topic that I've spoken a lot about in webinars or in some of my content in the past, but I've never done a podcast episode around it and I realized sitting in having this conversation and after outlining today's episode, I am super freaking passionate. Never did I think I would be the person To make my whole business focus helping people build really strategic and effective presentations. I know that might surprise you, but I never thought that would be as I. I was always like I'm gonna help with the delivery, I can help it be more effective, but building talks from scratch, that was not. That wasn't what I had set out to do. But what I realized was it was exactly what I needed and exactly what those that I serve best needed To make the impact that they wanted to make in the world.

Speaker 1: 46:41

And I think you're one of those people, my friend. I think that you have a vision in your mind of the impact that you want to have. You have this vision around how what you know and what you've done up until this point, you know it'll help more people. But where you're potentially getting caught up is how do you do that at scale, how to get people to listen to you? How do you Not sound like a rambling dummy? Uh, I mean not you, but this is something I hear all the time. It's it's that in between, and I hope that this show for you, this episode and all of the episodes that I bring to you on Hit to hustle.

Speaker 1: 47:18

I hope this is serving as a true masterclass for communication, for how you think and how you show up more confidently and competently in this world, because your expertise, it needs to be heard, and I am just so grateful for you giving me a little bit of a slice, of helping you Share it with with more people. So if this landed great for you today and you know that there'd be others who'd love it too, please take a screenshot, send it to a friend, post it on your instagram stories. Whatever you're feeling is your fancy, help me get this message out, because I think More of these people who have big messages like us, they need help getting it out into the world. So if you know someone who would benefit from today, please, please, share. I'm wishing you all of the luck this week navigating the end of summer, or if you have kids back to school, or if you Uh, whatever it is in your life or business right now. I'm cheering you on my personal update, as I started this episode talking about the circus. That is my life. Funny enough, I actually booked tickets last night to the circus this weekend and I'm surprising my kids by taking them to a real life circus. So I'll keep you posted on that next week. All right, friend, talk to you soon.

Speaker 1: 48:31

Well, thanks for listening to another episode of the hint of hustle podcast. That flew right by, didn't it, gosh? I hope I didn't say anything super embarrassing today, but if I did, it's pretty much on brand. If you love today's episode, be sure to Scroll on down wherever you're listening from, and if you haven't yet left a review, it would mean a lot to me. I'm so excited to see you all. Be sure to scroll on down wherever you're listening from, and if you haven't yet left a review, it would mean the world. Hit those five stars. Tell other people who are prospecting podcasts how awesome this show is. Give us a little love. We would appreciate that. And hey, if you're hungry for more of what we do here on this show, you can peruse all of the past episodes, grab the show notes and find out the latest free resources to help you get seen Hard and paid for sharing your expertise. Head on over to heathersakercom. You can also grab the link wherever you're listening to this episode, and we'll see you in the next one.