Richard Mulholland addressed us at the Virtual Chapter with a talk titled “How to write a talk that people will pay you to deliver”
Rich has been in the entertainment arena for all of his working life. He has been speaking for 21 years and brings his wealth of experience and expertise to the stage whenever he shares some of his wisdom. This was no exception:
Speakers often mistake purpose for client satisfaction, we do this by writing our talk for the audience, not for the person paying you to speak. We need to assume that the person booking you has the audience’s best interest in mind and work with their lead. We also stray from our core message and try to deliver more of what the audience or clients want rather than stick to our area of authority.
How do we define our area of authority?
We need a story. This comes from one of two sources: ‘Olympians’ are speakers who have endured or achieved something superb, beyond most other’s capability or desires. All other speakers are ‘Journalists’, speakers who have researched a topic and learnt enough about it to become a thought leader or subject expert.
Our story needs to invoke change and action in others, to better themselves through application.
Speakers too often make the mistake of using a key story to extract key points that may be relevant to the audience. We need to start with a point of interest that others do not know, and then add relevant stories to support these points.
We need to be excited about the topic that we talk about, this leads to the need to constantly learn for ourselves and teach others. The more we learn, the more we will have burning topics to share. This leads to a clear and curios opening to your keynotes that will attract clients and entertain audiences.
We need to move into areas and topics that are not too crowded to avoid dilution of ideas and fierce competition to get stage space. Stopforth’s law states that whoever puts their hand up first where there are no experts, becomes that expert. As technology and science expand, there is always new room for new experts. The narrower the topic becomes the deeper the area of authority that we can own as speakers.
If you are not the smartest person on the topic you have chosen, then you had better be the most entertaining. Your experience is key to overcoming imposter syndrome, but you need to have had experience.
Who you are as a speaker today is based on the choices you have made, but guided by the legacy that still lies before you.
Useful links from Rich:
- Access book summaries already converted to talks: https://msnglnk.com/atomictalks/
- Missing Link’s Speaking programme: https://msnglnk.com/story-to-stage/
- Tim Urban’s TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator
Written by:
Bruce Wade
Professional Member / Past Association President / SAEHoF
