Published in · 6 min read · Sep 9, 2019
There’s a popular belief that great guest speakers are born with those public speaking skills: all they do is to stand on that stage and shine. Their charisma and confidence do all the job for them.
Well, as I said, it’s only a popular belief.
The first thing I want you to take away from here is that great guest speaking sessions are never instantaneous. They are planned, organized, and persistently practiced. It takes constant performance till one acquires outstanding public speaking skills.
Now let’s dive in to the deeper waters where the sharks live. Buckle up!
Great guest speaking sessions never look like Desdemona’s hair: they are very well thought and organized. Make your speech flow, organize the topics in a way that they complement each other in a chronological order. Never jump from one topic to another in a random order. Keep it organized and make it flow!
Hint: Create an outline of your presentation (isn’t a must to be presented) and practice how you’re going to seamlessly transition from one point to another.
Firstly, you gotta learn the needs of your audience: talk to the organizers, do your homework, and prepare relevant content. Time is money, even if it’s not, it is very precious! Make sure to use your session time wisely and add up value to what your audience already knows.
Secondly, killer guest speaking sessions never discuss cliche topics. Add solid content and make it a mix of theory and practice. Bring in pro terms and acquaint your audience with some nuances.
Example: Lately, I have been delivering a guest speaking session during a youth exchange program. I was talking about digital marketing strategies. While talking about email marketing, I described how the email marketing works and then went beyond the intro and introduced them to some pro concepts such as soft bounce and hard bounce. Spice it up!
How many of you…? Have you ever…? and other such engagement questions have long been outdated. Killer guest speakers bring in some young blood — they go creative.
The two of my favorite go-to engagement tools are short group tasks and online polls.
Here’s how I used these tools during one of my guest speaking sessions about business strategy.
I created a poll asking my participants to choose one of the four brands/products. I displayed the results on the screen as they updated in real-time. I could notice the excitement as we were chasing the majority of votes. The poll ended, we got the winning option, and started working around that brand/product. My audience chose Starbucks.
After having chosen the brand/product, I split my audience into 4 groups and assigned different tasks to each group. They had 7 minutes to work on the tasks and 1 minute per group to present their works — this is not that long if you keep the timing.
After this kind of engagement, they were fully on the same page with me till the very end of the session that lasted for 1 hour.
Note: I like to use Swift Polling when I do live polls. You can do your own research for other options.
Books and web research can be done by anyone. People come to learn from your expertise. Therefore, flavor your speech with case studies and examples from your own professional experience. Share some fun practices and some failures. Give them a sense of the real red ocean.
Hint: Do not use buzz words if your audience doesn’t know them. Keep it mundane, practical, simple, and, at the same time, professional.
Killer guest speakers know how to package and present their personal brand — what they wear, how they groom, and what materials they use. Your presentation shouldn’t look like “you didn’t really have time, but since they asked… “. Make time to carefully create your presentation slides:
- Make nice visuals,
- Keep your slides organized,
- Add images that go well with the content,
- Work carefully with the colors,
- Add animations (this helps your audience not to get lost in your slides: guide them),
- Make it delicate and elegant.
Note: Slides help your audience to stay focused and better mentally structure what you’re telling. Make sure to have slides every time you deliver a guest speaking session or a training.
You’ve got to shine on that stage, well, not glitter really.
The killer guest speaker wears that cap of an extroverted superhero and goes out there to spread positive vibes only. Why? Because when you do guest speaking you need to talk, to ask, to entertain, to scream, to answer, to reject, and to approve. Like I said, you need to be the light of the whole room.
Hint: Get to know what motivates, energizes, and gives good vibes to you. Do that routine to get charged every time before you need to speak in the public.
Every killer guest speaking session is another adventure that you should fully enjoy. Do not think of it as a battle, but as a cosy event where everyone came to share and have some good time. Own the stage, own your space, and tell your story. This is not a class time — this is the high time to speak your knowledge.
I bet you also wouldn’t be getting bored with that glass of wine and some good company of friends. Guest speaking sessions are of no difference. You’re the guest!
Hint: Do not be too colloquial, neither too professional. Make it a mixture: go pro when giving something important, and go casual when they need to digest what you’ve said. (I know this is hard, but good things take time :)
If you accepted the guest speaking invitation, that means you will need to speak up and speak out. Never think that you’re giving away your competitive advantage by sharing some important details of your knowledge. Remember: the more you give, the more you receive. Share your knowledge generously with those who came to learn from you; by that you will earn respect, well-educated listeners, and more people who will be there to help you later on their turn.
Hint: Do not give out internal company strategies/secrets. Package everything in a wisely balanced info pack.
To kill it over and over again, you need to improve yourself based on your audience feedback. Create short online or paper evaluation forms, talk to your audience directly, or ask for anonymous feedback; just make sure to get one.
Remember to listen more and speak less!
To finish the real great guest speaking session with high note, you gotta be humble. Never and ever be boastful of the fact that you’re the expert in the room. You never know who else is seating in your audience you know nothing about. Instead, once done with your sessions be wide open to go right into your audience, talk to them, ask how they enjoy the overall event, get acquainted, listen to them, and learn what you can.
Career is a staircase — stay humble and stay human in order not to fall off the ladder.
