How to take your speaking skills to the next level with Allison Shapira, CEO of Global Public Speaking

In this episode, Allison Shapira, author of “Speak with Impact” and CEO of Global Public Speaking, joins host Jason Mudd to discuss the performance of public speaking, the skills you need for public speaking today, how to craft talking points, and how to take your skills to the next level.

Tune in to learn more!

Watch the episode here

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

1. The performance of public speaking
2. The public speaking skills you need today
3. How to craft talking points 
4. How to develop a speech for an executive
5. How to take your speaking skills to the next level

Resources

• Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR podcast
• Find out more about Axia Public Relations
• Find Allison Shapira on Twitter
• Connect and learn more about Allison Shapira on LinkedIn 
• Visit speakwithimpactbook.com for more information on how to get your free download!

• Speak with Impact Paperback
• Speak with Impact Audiobook 
• Speak with Impact VIRTUALLY

Additional Resources from Axia Public Relations:

• How company executives can become powerful keynote speakers with Michael Port from Heroic Public Speaking
• KeyNote, Booking Public Speaking Engagements
• MediaMaster Spokesperson Training Services 
  

Highlights

[03:21] How did you start your coaching career?

• Allison used to be an opera singer.
• She saw that the techniques she used to be a good singer also helped her become a strong speaker. That’s when she started coaching keynote speakers.

Allison: “I actually start with opera and end with folk music to make a point about authenticity over perfection in our public speaking. So I've been able to bring music into my keynotes, which I love.”

[06:32] Is public speaking a performance?

• It is and isn’t.

Allison: “We're performing something we've written. So there's an extra element of accountability and ownership and nervousness that goes with it because we're taking responsibility for our own message.”

• It's something you perform and plan in advance. You don’t make it up as you go, but create a polished and relevant piece that you perform. 
• You have to be accurate in what you're saying.

Allison: “Even if you're not being paid, every time you're onstage, you have an opportunity to influence others' behaviors, thoughts, actions. And that's such an awesome responsibility. We don't want to wing it.”

[13:42] What are the public speaking skills you need today?

• Hybrid environments for meetings are occurring more frequently.
• Before the event, identify details such as whose platform you’re using, who’s managing the breakout rooms, etc. 
• Troubleshoot these issues an hour before people arrive to an in-person event or 30 minutes prior to a virtual event. 

[19:24] How do you go from crafting talking points to delivering a compelling presentation

• While you are writing talking points, you need to take ownership of the topic.
• Ask the speaker why they care about the topic, the people, etc., which allows you to develop authentic and inspiring talking points.
• For communications or PR professional tasked with writing an executive’s speech:
• Get immediate face time with the executive to learn their thoughts on the topic.
• Taking 10 minutes with the executive asking them why they care and why it’s important can help craft an authentic message.
• Read your messages out loud.

Allison: “Read it out loud and make sure it sounds good to the ear as opposed to looking good to the eye.”

• Take initiate to get genuine answers from the executive to create the speech.
• Be smart and be brief.

[27:43] How to take your skills to the next level

• Everyone can increase their skills to the next level
• A 10-minute debrief after every speaking event:
• What worked?
• What didn’t work?
• What am I going to do differently next time? 
• Update the speech’s outline based on what you would do differently next time. 

Allison: “Taking your speaking skills to the next level means consistent application of what you know you should be doing anyways. It's building that muscle memory.”

[29:42] Special Offer

• “Speak with Impact” book
• “Speak With Impact Virtually” e-companion
• Go to speakwithimpactbook.com to learn how you can download the e-book for free!

About Allison Shapira

Allison Shapira is a former opera singer-turned-entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and expert in public speaking. She is the founder/CEO of Global Public Speaking LLC, a communication training firm and certified woman-owned small business that helps people speak clearly, concisely, and confidently – both virtually and in person. She teaches public speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School and has spent nearly 20 years developing leadership communication programs for Fortune 50 companies, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations around the world. Allison is a certified virtual presenter and a certified speaking professional. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and is the author of “Speak with Impact: How to Command the Room and Influence Others,” which was a Washington Post bestseller. She was a finalist for 2017 Woman Business Owner of the Year by the National Association of Women Business Owners, San Diego Chapter. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

Enjoy the Podcast?

If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and family. This episode can give you professional insight into media coverage. Know your rights and the regulations to follow when it comes to the media.

Have any questions? You can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Thank you for tuning in! For more updates, visit our On Top of PR website or join the community. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Transcript

- Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd, presented by ReviewMaxer.

- Hello and welcome to On Top of PR. I'm your host, Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. Today I'm joined by Allison Shapira. Allison is the founder of Global Public Speaking, and we're here today to talk about public speaking. Allison, welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here.

- Thanks, Jason. Such a pleasure to be with you.

- Yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation. I know it's been a long time in the making. Um, so let me set the table. Uh, we're a PR agency and a lot of our clients and our audience are interested in getting more speaking engagements for us. Eight times out of 10 we're being hired by a company to do their PR. And as part of that, they're asking us to get their speaker or their executives and their thought leaders and their engineers or product developers or, uh, business unit leaders out there speaking in front of the industry. Maybe depending on the company. Sometimes the community, oftentimes it's speaking to other business leaders and occasionally it's just reaching hobbyists and enthusiasts to use their products or their services. So it could just be general consumers. This is something I really like doing on behalf of our clients because it gets them a chance to get out there and meet the industry, meet the people who are buying and using their products.

- They often get great feedback from the market. Not always, uh, great feedback about their speech. Right? Sometimes speakers don't want to get feedback because they're doing things intentionally. Um, and there's a lot of amateur armchair quarterbacks out there giving feedback, but they do get a chance to connect with true users of their products and service and hear grassroots feedback, which I think is very valuable. So we asked you here today just to kind of talk about public speaking, how to get better at it and, uh, and whatnot, because I think you'll agree. Most leaders think they're already a great speaker because they run meetings efficiently. People, you know, tell them they're engaging, but sometimes that's just the people inside their four walls, right, that are kind of complimenting the boss. Um, whereas when you go outside those four walls, your audience, you actually kind of have to earn that audience. You're not paying that audience to be there. In fact, oftentimes they're paying to be with you, so they have a higher expectation. Does that sound like a good way, place to start our conversation today, Allison?

- Yes. You've had a very thorough introduction of this topic, and we could take it in a number of different directions, but, but absolutely. It's difficult to get the feedback and then when delivering the message, there's a lot that goes into it that people don't realize. So I'm happy to start there.

- Absolutely. So I've got a couple notes of things we're going to talk about, like what are public speaking skills you need in a post-pandemic environment? How do you go from crafting talking points to delivering a compelling presentation? And how do you take your speaking skills to the next level? And I think I love the next level because everybody can go to the next level. You can always get better – at Axia, we say get one percent better every day. And I think if you're a speaker and you want to become a professional speaker or you already are a professional speaker, it's very easy and tangible to get one percent better every day.

- I that that's absolutely correct. So I'm so glad that you provide that opportunity because one percent is something that's both approachable and consistent. And so focusing on that is such a powerful technique.

- Well, first of all, Allison, how did you get into this business?

- My first career path was as an opera singer. So that's the unique background that I bring to this. I always wanted to be an opera singer. And then for a number of different reasons that I go into in my keynote speeches, it was something that I lost my passion for and was told I wasn't good enough for. So I left and found out everything I learned as an opera singer actually made me a very good speaker and an even better coach. And so I developed a training company using those techniques that I had learned to be a good singer, helping people become powerful public speakers.

- Allison, we could settle this right now and you could sing some opera and we will agree that you are a great opera singer, but I know that no one does that to a true professional. Right? No one meets Shania Twain and says, “Sing something for me,” right? Or no one meets, you know, um, uh, I don't know, uh, let's see. Um, Kid Rock and say, “Do something for me right now,” right? Uh, just, it doesn't happen that way. But you know, my friends who are comedians, and I've dabbled in some stand-up comedy, they say all the time, people say, “Oh, tell me something funny.” And it's like, you know, “Hey, you, you, you haven't had, uh, a beverage to drink. You're not sitting in a dark room,” you know, whatever. It's, it's a little harder to, to kind of do those performances. So I won't put you on the spot. Uh, but, but unless you're up for it,

- <laugh> Well, as a singer, I'm always up for it because singers sing. This is what we do. So if you want, I'll give you a little, a little piece of opera right now.

- Let's set the stage. Let's do it. 

- All right, let's, let's, let's do this. I'm going to take a nice breath. I'm going to have a sip of water, which is what we do before we go onstage. Sure.

-OK.

- And then I'll get my posture in the right place. There you go. And here we go.

- Wow

- That's a little snippet for you right

- There. That is awesome. Well done. Yes. OK. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. No one expected to hear opera today on the On Top of PR podcast, including me, but wow, that was very impressive. Thank you. And, um, you know, my wife and I, we love going to the opera, so well done. I really enjoyed that. And I, I'm guessing, do you, is opera part of your performance, uh, when you do keynotes?

- It is. I actually start with opera and end with folk music to make a point about authenticity over perfection in our public speaking. So I've been able to bring music into my keynotes, which I love.

- You're giving me a great opportunity to mention that speaking public speaking is entertaining and it's entertainment. And I think a lot of times people look at it as if it's just sharing information, but really you're, it's, it's like, it's like theater. And when you do it well, it's like a stage, right? So you're on a stage, you have stage presence and things like that. So I'm going to stop talking about it and turn it over to you because you are the expert here.

- I'm glad that you mentioned that, Jason, because it, it both is and isn't a performance. So when we're, when we're singing opera, this is not what we've written now I did, it's almost, who am I, Mozart, Puccini, how dare I think of writing my own music? So what we're doing as singers is performing other people's music, unless we're singer-songwriters, which I am as well. But the difference with, with opera and public speaking is that in public speaking, we're performing something we've written. So there's an extra element of accountability and ownership and nervousness that goes with it because we're taking responsibility for our own message. And so that's why it becomes sometimes harder to think about public speaking as a performance because we're not acting, we're not pretending; we're being our most authentic, vulnerable version of ourselves.

- Sure. But you're still performing just like a musician is performing their craft or whatever that might be.

- We're, we're on, we're on stage and there's an element of presence and poise that always has to be there.

- Yeah, I agree with you. You're not acting, but you are performing. And, and I would say for our listener, our audience who are either want to be the speaker, or more likely they are listening as a marketing, corporate communications, public relations professional who is guiding someone in the organization who wants to speak that you said it's something that you've written. And I think that's important because so many entrepreneurs and executives think that I just have this in my head, I'm just going to get up onstage, I'm going to wing it and it's going to be fine because I'm dynamic and charismatic and I'm good on my feet. And you're shaking your head no. And I see that, and that's why I bring it up because yes, you are, uh, good on your feet, you're charismatic, you're, you're polished, you're leader, you lead people every day. But people, again, came to hear something and they expect that you've invested in that process for them. Unlike a staff meeting or a company conference where everybody's getting paid to be there. I mentioned that earlier. And I think it's really, really important that the audience understands that you can't just send your charismatic CEO into an industry conference where they're just going to get onstage and wing it because there will be people who are disappointed.

- Certainly. So when you have an audience that's paying for inexperience, there's a certain level of expectations that are set that you're going to be prepared and practiced. Yes. And not just authentic, but accurate in what you're saying. Yes. Now what I would say is even if you're not being paid, every time you're onstage, you have an opportunity to influence others' behaviors, thoughts, actions. And that's such an awesome responsibility. We don't want to wing it. Maybe it works once or twice because we got lucky and passionate, but excellence doesn't happen in a spontaneous setting. It happens with consistency, preparation, and practice. And so that's what we focus on in my firm is how do you do that consistently so that the magic always happens.

- There you go. I love that. So Allison, someone comes to you and, um, uh, I'm assuming that you accept clients at all levels and experience. Is that accurate?

- Certainly. Usually clients will come to us when they're either moving into leadership roles or they're in leadership and want to take their skills to the next level. And that's when we work with them. OK.

- Is it always going to be people who are looking to do public speaking or is it also just leaders who want to be better communicators and better presenters?

- It's usually the latter. So we define public speaking as anytime you speak to one person or more, OK. With some goal. And we do that because as you know, and as your listeners know, public speaking in front of large audiences doesn't usually happen every single day unless you're a professional speaker. What does happen is that every single day you're speaking to clients, you're on the phone, you're giving a pitch, you are having a difficult conversation with your team. So when we focus on leadership communication, it comprises all of those daily situations in which we have an opportunity to use our voice to have a positive impact on others. And that's what we do on a daily basis with my company.

- Perfect. That's why I like this, uh, episode, because there's synergies here where, you know, you're helping them, uh, improve their presentation skills. We're helping them get the opportunities to go out and speak in front of the groups that matter to them and their organization. And I can tell you our clients who are the most prepared and I have the most, you know, are most intentional, uh, when they're going out there, have the best result in front of that audience and get what, uh, one of my friends in the business calls, you know, becomes a referral speaker, where therefore they get more referrals to come back and speak in more places. And so, you know, it's kind of the, uh, the cart before the horse, the chicken and the egg. Right? You've got to be a good speaker in order to speak, and then as you get better as a speaker, you get more referrals, but you’ve got to start somewhere. And so that includes, you know, know a company like us out there pitching you to speak. So

- That's right. And those processes happen concurrently. So while you are out there trying to find those opportunities, we're working with those same individuals, helping them polish their speech, craft their message, find personal stories, usually at a firm like yours is, is doing a lot of that, that speech writing and that behind-the-scenes work. And, and we do similar work, but focusing on the, the delivery as well as the, the crafting of the message. And then how do we take those talking points and make them come alive from the delivery, the eye contact, body language? How do we do that? And then once you get the opportunity and we have the skills in place, now that speaker can go out and hit a home run with their speech.

- Perfect. OK, well let's take a quick break, and I'm going to come back and ask you the three questions that we talked about in the first half of the episode, and then we'll go from there and talk about more. So stand by for more from Allison. Uh, again, this is Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations, and we'll be right back after this message

- You're listening to on top of PR with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted adviser to some of America's most admired and fastest-growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social and web strategies for national companies. And now, back to the show.

- Hello. Welcome back to On Top of PR, and we're going to bring back Allison and jump right into our questions. Allison, again, thanks for joining us. I've really enjoyed the conversation. Uh, what, um, let's talk about what are the public speaking skills you need today? Uh, and specifically let's talk a little bit but not completely about the post-pandemic environment that we're in.

- Certainly, well, over the past couple of years, many people were thrown into virtual communications in a way that they hadn't done before. So whether it's Zoom, WebEx teams, or any number of technologies, we had to learn how to be comfortable on camera. And now that we have many people back into the office, but many people are still working from home or working remotely, this idea of a hybrid environment where some people are virtual and some are in person for the same meeting is something that we're going to encounter much more frequently. In addition, what we're seeing already is that a lot of meetings that were taking place in one medium are now switching at the last minute to another medium. And I'll give you an example. We may be prepared for an important presentation that we've delivered that we're presenting at a conference, and then at the last minute, that conference goes versatile- it goes virtual, right? And everything that we had prepared in terms of “turn to the person next to you” or “by a show of hands, how many of you,” all of a sudden we need to move that into a virtual space and say, “now we're going to do a quick breakout group” or use the raise-hand feature. And so what I'm talking about with a lot of our clients is this idea of the versatile communicator where our confidence, our level of preparation is regardless of the medium. So if we have to switch to virtual at a moment's notice or switch to in-person at a moment's notice, we're prepared and we're confident and we're just as effective. So that kind of versatility is going to be critical for the foreseeable future as we have all sorts of technologies in our presentations.

- Yes. And I would add to that, that there's situations where, like, you're preparing a presentation on Zoom and suddenly the audience comes back to you and I've, I had this happen this morning, you know, like, uh, you know, five minutes into when you're supposed to be starting saying, Oh, hey, uh, we don't use Zoom, we use Teams, can you jump over to teams and, and, and do it there? I'm like, OK, I can, but you know, I'm all set up with Zoom and ready to go. Uh, or they just something like that and I get it. And so this morning, you know, I was kind of in a spot where I just kind of nudged the person. I said, you know, could we have could, we had noticed that weeks ago when we first put on the books and it had a Zoom link, you know, and, uh, you know, just a little heads-up that it was going to be on Teams would've been great. So we pivoted, it was fine and we improvised and it went, you know, fairly flawless. We just got a little bit of a late start to uh, you know, get the links and exchange the information and all that. But it happens. And I would say, you know, any experienced professional public speaker knows how to improvise, right? That's going to happen. But the more of those details you can identify ahead of time and work through ahead of time, you know, the better. Right?

- Um, That's right. And, and we have a pre-program checklist that we’ll go through with our clients weeks before the event, including whose platform are we using, yours or ours, Right. Who's running it? Who's managing the breakout groups so that we know that in advance. And, and it's because we're sending those links out in advance we'll know which platform we're using, but sometimes we have clients who have to use WebEx. And WebEx has all different settings from meeting to training center. The breakout functionality is completely different. And sometimes we'll show up for a presentation thinking it's one WebEx setting, and it's actually another, which completely changes the flow and the capabilities. So we do have to be able to pivot on the fly.

- Sounds like I need that checklist for myself, Allison, Uh, in, in addition, uh, you're absolutely right. And the other thing I find weird is like WebEx, I haven't used that in a long time. I guarantee you if I went to it right now, it would pop up and say, you need to update WebEx, you need to download whatever. And all that is takes time. You know, especially at the last minute when you're trying to, uh, prepare for your presentation.

- It, it's right Jason. And it also reminds us why it's critical to log in with enough buffer time. Yep. In advance. So for an in-person presentation, we get there an hour before others arrive, not just an hour before it starts, an hour before others arrive. Right. So we can troubleshoot. And then in a virtual setting, we'll log in 30 minutes before the start time. And then what we're doing is we're checking the links, we're checking our connection, checking the sound and the AV and, and everything. And if there's a new version of WebEx, now we have time to download the version, give WebEx permission to access our camera and audio. And so that's why we give ourselves that buffer time because even if we do this a hundred times with the same client, something is still going to come up. It's amazing. Yeah. And something always goes wrong. Absolutely. We simply plan for that.

- That's right. That's right. For our audience listening, this is what, uh, we talk about when we mention a professional public speaker. Right. You want to be a professional and if you have a, you know, in your normal, uh, executive role or business role. Right. And then if you're going to also endeavor to be a public speaker, you should endeavor to be a professional at it. And with that takes practice and rehearsal and experience and checklist and know-how and being, you know, diligent and show up like a professional like you would in your normal job. So Allison, thank you. That's some really good advice. Uh, how do you go from crafting talking points to delivering a compelling presentation?

- One challenge we face when we're used to crafting talking points for other people is, is not transitioning to a point where we take ownership of our own message. And that can be an extensive process of looking inward to determine why are we called to speak. What do we care about? What's important to us? And, and that's a level of introspection we're not used to if we're writing talking points for somebody else. It's what I mentioned earlier when I talked about going from being a singer, singing other people's works to being a speaker where I craft my own message. And the first question that I recommend people ask themselves when they want to deliver a presentation themselves is to ask the question, why you? And by why you, I don't mean why are you qualified? Where do you go to school? Where did you go to school? Who do you work for? How many years of experience? Those are external validators for “Why you,” I mean, why do you care about the people you're speaking to about your message, about the work you do? And when was a moment in your life that made you care? And when we connect with that, that visceral internal sense of purpose, it then helps us come up with language that's authentic to us, that will be inspiring to our audience, and we’ll come up with some personal anecdotes, some stories that we can use in our presentation to make the message come alive. And that's one of the most critical ways in which we go from talking points to a compelling personal presentation.

- You're reminding me of one of my favorite books, “Radical Leap,” uh, where we, where they talk about, you know, do what you love and service of those who love what you do. And, uh, yeah, it's so important. You care about your audience and you care about those that you work with and serve. And it comes through when you mention, like you mentioned earlier, the authenticity. So I really like that, Allison. Thank you. Um, so let's talk about, uh, so I want to just kind of back up just a smidge. So we talked about having, crafting talking points and then delivering a compelling message. So let's say, um, let's put ourselves in the seat of somebody in the communications department at a corporation. An executive has come to them and said, Hey, I got this. You know, in my experience it's, I've got this presentation, you know, on Friday, or, you know, whatever it might be. Can you write up a script for me, or, you know, write this speech for me? Maybe they've given you more notice than a few business days. Maybe they've given you weeks’ or months' notice, but I just kind of want to talk about what's your recommendation to that marketing communications person who the executive has reached out to. And, you know, maybe there is time, maybe there's not time to get you involved, but what, what should they be doing in thinking in order to kind of take on a more strategic approach to this request from this executive?

- I really appreciate you asking that question because I work with a lot of executives who have communication support. They have executive communications support on their team, and very often I'm working with the executive on their presentation skills, but they have someone else writing the message for them. And the biggest, the most important step that usually is overlooked is immediate face time with that executive to get their high-level thoughts on what they want to speak about. Right? We cannot expect the communications professional to automatically know what that executive wants to say. And even 10 minutes virtually with that executive where we, we already understand who's the audience, but asking our executive, What's your goal? What do you want people to do as a result of hearing you speak, asking the executive why you, why do you care? What's important to you about this message, about this audience?

- And then the communications professionals should already know the, these, the priorities of the company and the priorities of the executive. So then they can merge that executive's personal experience and anecdotes with the official talking points of the company. And then craft a message. And, and also the second most important step, once that professional has crafted the message, read it out loud and make sure it sounds good to the ear as opposed to looking good to the eye. Right? We want to make sure it's something that that executive can then comfortably deliver. And those are a few critical process parts of the process that are usually overlooked and become, can become stumbling blocks.

- I want to make sure our audience, who is the communications marketing person like you described, that they hear what you're saying, that, you know, you're empowering, I think you're empowering them. I would empower them to say, don't just respond and react to an email or a voicemail or a text message says, Hey, I've got this speech. Go ahead and start writing something. Right. Like you said, the least they can do is give them 15 minutes of access or input, uh, you know, on the direction of that, that speech, because otherwise I'm with you. I think it creates unnecessary stress on the speech writer to make assumptions. And we know what happens when you assume. And then of course when you, when you do get that speech in front of that executive, if it's off target, off message or off intentions, you're gonna spend, they're, you're both gonna spend a lot more than 15 minutes trying to go back in time and fix that.

- That's right. It's, it's in everyone's best interest to get 15 minutes in advance because it will reduce your stress as the speech writer. It will reduce your executive's stress. And so it, it will, it will lead to a more productive working relationship overall that then the executive starts to trust you more, which means they bring you into more meetings so you have more strategic access to them. And that becomes a wonderful circle cycle where you're working together effectively.

- Of course, I agree with what you said about making sure that it sounds good to the ears, not just to the eyes. I think that's a challenge that we should take to anything that we're writing, right? Because people are, they're going to read it and they're going to hear it, whether it's in their mind or not, are they read it out loud. And I think the more conversational and authentic your communication sounds, the more I think people get it versus, you know, you know, rigid writing style or nonconversational writing. Do you have an opinion on that? I mean, I know your expertise is, is, is uh, you know, speaking, not necessarily writing, but you have to write a good yet if you're going to have a good presentation. You've written some of it out and, and vice versa.

- The answer is it depends. There's a lot that we apply to public speaking that does apply to writing as well, especially brevity. Clear, concise, get to the point. The aspect of brevity is critical in writing and in speaking, the difference is brevity in writing is much easier because we can simply bullet point our main phrases. Yeah. We can have headings, we can bold and italicize so that the eye immediately goes to where you'd like it to go. In public speaking, we don't have that luxury because we need to be, we need full sentences, we need to, to be grammatically correct. And so the process of writing a succinct message that's going to be spoken is actually harder because it's going to be longer than a written message where we can simply use bolding and italic.

- Yeah. Also, verbal communications allows you to emphasize and take pauses and things that written communications, you know, you can only hope that the reader might infer that and you know, in tone and other things that make emails and stuff like that challenging. You're also reminding one of my favorite cliches is be smart and be brief. Right? And so that's something I talk about a lot, especially I may read something somebody sent me and say, Hey, be smart and be brief. This is way too long or whatever it might be. Um, alright, so we, um, we talked about, um, you know, the question of how do you take your skills to the next level. Uh, we talked about the next level idea that everybody can do, uh, a better job of going to the next level. But, uh, do you, do you have additional, uh, recommendations on taking your presentation or your speech to the next level?

- Yes. And it comes back to that one percent concept that you had mentioned you use in your work. After every single speech or presentation, I do a 10-minute debrief. Immediately after I finish speaking, I'll ask myself three questions: What worked, what didn't, and what am I going to do differently next time? And based on that third question, I immediately update my outline of this script, my outline of the speech so that the next time I have to deliver it, it's already better. And those, those 10 minutes consistently are what make me a better speaker. Because a, a taking your speaking skills next to the next level means consistent application of what you know you should be doing anyways. It's building that muscle memory. So that 10-minute debrief is, in my experience, what makes the difference between a good speaker and an outstanding speaker because they put the time in and they have the discipline to continue making progress.

- I love that. Uh, one of our core values is improve. I mentioned that earlier. You know, we talk about getting one percent better every day. I also do that 10-minute conversation after each meeting, after each presentation. Maybe not for full 10 minutes beccause I just don't have the time. But that's what I'm thinking about as I'm transitioning to my next meeting. And then, I picked this up in an early age. I don't know who inspired it or why, but I mean, literally as early as my teen years, every night before I'd go to bed, I'd think about what went well today, right? What could have gone better and what am I going to do to leverage that? Both the good things and the things that need improvement. And uh, that's right. It just stuck with me. I mean, it's like, it, it happens without me even thinking about it as part of my, you know, my self-pillow talk, I guess is I'm going to bed. I literally think about that. So anyway, Allison, um, you mentioned earlier before we pressed record, that you've got a new book out. Um, tell us more about that. And, and there may be a special offer for our audience.

-That's right. I'm, I'm very excited that this book “Speak with Impact” has just come out recently in paperback. And as a result I've written a, a companion e-guide called “Speak With Impact Virtually,” and that it takes everything in this book and applies it in a virtual or hybrid setting. And so anyone who is interested in either the, the paperback or the e-book can go to speakwithimpactbook.com and find out how they can access that e-book as a free download.

-Well that sounds like a great offer, um, and very valuable. So good. Well, Allison, it's been a pleasure having you on the show today. Uh, during the break we figured out that we were both at the National Speakers Association conference. Uh, that's right. There was, you know, several hundred people there and I guess we didn't get a chance to meet, but then you told me about your onstage performance and then I definitely remembered, uh, seeing you there. So thank you for sharing, um, onstage and thank you for sharing today with our audience. Um, and so with that, we're going to wrap up here by saying, uh, thank you to our audience for tuning in today. And if you found this episode helpful to you, I'm sure a peer or a friend of yours in the business would also. So please take a moment and share this episode with them. And if you haven't yet done so, please leave us a review. We'd love your review and your feedback on your favorite, uh, device or favorite platform that you catch On Top of PR on. So with that, this is Jason Mudd signing off from On Top of PR, and on behalf of Axia Public Relations, I hope something great happens to you today.

-This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode and check out shows On Top of PR.

Sponsored by:

• On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands.
• On Top of PR is sponsored by ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews.

About your host Jason Mudd

On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

Find more On Top of PR episodes on: