How to Get a Standing Ovation

When I started public speaking in about 1986, I was deathly afraid of public speaking—for one thing, working for the division run by Steve Jobs was hugely intimidating: How could you possibly compete with Steve? It’s taken me twenty years to get comfortable at it. I hope that many of you are are called upon to give speeches—it’s the closest thing to being a professional athlete that many of us will achieve. The purpose of this blog entry is to help you give great speeches.

1. Have something interesting to say. This is 80% of the battle. If you have something interesting to say, then it’s much easier to give a great speech. If you have nothing to say, you should not speak. End of discussion. It’s better to decline the opportunity so that no one knows you don’t have anything to say than it is to make the speech and prove it.
2. Cut the sales pitch. The purpose of most keynotes is to entertain and inform the audience. It is seldom to provide you with an opportunity to pitch your product, service, or company. For example, if you’re invited to speak about the future of digital music, you shouldn’t talk about the latest MP3 player that your company is selling.
3. Focus on entertaining. Many speech coaches will disagree with this, but the goal of a speech is to entertain the audience. If people are entertained, you can slip in a few nuggets of information. But if your speech is deathly dull, no amount of information will make it a great speech. If I had to pick between entertaining and informing an audience, I would pick entertaining—knowing that informing will probably happen too.
4. Understand the audience. If you can prove to your audience in the first five minutes that you understand who they are, you’ve got them for the rest of the speech. All you need to understand is the trends, competition, and key issues that the audience faces. This simply requires consultation with the host organization and a willingness to customize your introductory remarks. This ain’t that hard.
5. Overdress. My father was a politician in Hawaii. He was a very good speaker. When I started speaking he gave me a piece of advice: Never dress beneath the level of the audience. That is, if they’re wearing suits, then you should wear a suit. To underdress is to communicate the following message: “I’m smarter/richer/more powerful than you. I can insult you and not take you serious, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” This is hardly the way to get an audience to like you.
6. Don’t denigrate the competition. If you truly do cut the sales pitch, then this won’t even come up. But just in case, never denigrate the competition because by doing so, you are taking undue advantage of the privilege of giving a speech. You’re not doing the audience a favor. The audience is doing you a favor, so do not stoop so low as to use this opportunity to slander your competition.
7. Tell stories. The best way to relax when giving a speech is to tell stories. Any stories. Stories about your youth. Stories about your kids. Stories about your customers. Stories about things that you read about. When you tell a story, you lose yourself in the storytelling. You’re not “making a speech” anymore. You’re simply having a conversation. Good speakers are good storytellers; great speakers tell stories that support their message.
8. Pre-circulate with the audience. True or false: the audience wants your speech to go well. The answer is True. Audiences don’t want to see you fail—for one thing, why would people want to waste their time listening to you fail? And here’s the way to heighten your audience’s concern for you: circulate with the audience before the speech. Meet people. Talk to them. Let them make contact with you. Especially the ones in the first few rows; then, when you’re on the podium, you’ll see these friendly faces. Your confidence will soar. You will relax. And you will be great.
9. Speak at the start of an event. If you have the choice, get in the beginning part of the agenda. The audience is fresher then. They’re more apt to listen to you, laugh at your jokes, and follow along with your stories. On the third day of a three-day conference, the audience is tired, and all they’re thinking about is going home. It’s hard enough to give a great speech—why increase the challenge by having to lift the audience out of the doldrums?
10. Ask for a small room. If you have a choice, get the smallest room possible for your speech. If it’s a large room, ask that it be set “classroom style”—ie, with tables and chairs—instead of theatre style. A packed room is a more emotional room. It is better to have 200 people in a 200 person room than 500 people in a 1,000 person room. You want people to remember, “It was standing room only.”
11. Practice and speak all the time. This is a “duhism,” but nonetheless relevant. My theory is that it takes giving a speech at least twenty times to get decent at it. You can give it nineteen times to your dog if you like, but it takes practice and repetition. There is no shortcut to Carnegie Hall. As Jascha Heifitz said, “If I don’t practice one day, I know it. If I don’t practice two days, my critics know it. If I don’t practice three days, everyone knows it.” Read this article to learn what Steve Jobs does.

It’s taken me twenty years to get to this point. I hope it takes you less. Part of the reason why it took me so long is that no one explained the art of giving a speech to me, and I was too dumb to do the research. And now, twenty years later, I love speaking. My goal, every time I get up to the podium, is to get a standing ovation. I don’t succeed very often, but sometimes I do. More importantly, I hope that I’m standing and clapping in the audience of your speech soon.

Comments

[Nicholas DiToro]

I just got three Toastmaster's "Best Speaker" Awards in a row. Thanks for the advice!

[Pete George]

I performed at Catch a Rising Star comedy club in Reno last week. Out of eight shows I recieved six standing ovations. I have found that you have to be focused on contribution. What am I giving?, rather than what am I getting? The more you give the more you get back. It's all about contribution. Thanks. Pete George

[eirikso]

This is excellent advice!

However, I miss something about the people that have the courage to stand out. To be different. To do something completely unique in the endless row of presentations on a conference. Not long ago I experienced something completely different thet I have tried to share with people here:
http://www.eirikso.com/2006/06/24/making-a-truly-personal-presentation/

[Managed Dedicated Servers]

This is a very infomative post, you raise some interesting points. I'm going to book mark this on delicious.

[JFB]

Please, could you spare us the SYSTEMATIC numbering of each of your entries? It makes sense some time, but not MOST of the time. Think of your shopping list. Does it make ANY sense to buy carrots before yoghourt, or chocolate, or shaving cream?

Nope. You should reserve the numbering to when it makes sens to have an order. Simple bullet points will do, if you can't accept the age old tradion of a simple paragraph per sub topic :-)

Nice posts in all, but those numbers ...

[Scott Sehlhorst]

Great advice - we referenced it in our post Top ten tips for giving a better presentation.

Thanks for sharing your insights with us!

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This is a great site with lots of useful links

Good work keeps it up!

[Solveig Haugland]

I absolutely agree with the entertaining part. (That's part of why Reagan lasted so long. Lots of jokes his audience loved....but I digress.)

When I train, I always show the students something not all that necessary, but easy and fun. I show them how to make bulleted lists using pictures of their cat, or make text blink in their documents. Just something fun. This bleeds into Kathy Sierra Land (creating passionate users) and giving students the I Rule feeling, but it's also related to the Be Entertaining guideline.

[CarlaGolden]

Guy, I am a minister and also spent seven years on the road as a speaker. It is easy to get caught up in the need to have a standing ovation. That is more about ego than about serving. Not that you can't have both, but if you're focused on getting the standing ovation, you take your focus off being a blessing. That's my viewpoint anyway. One situation that I had proved this all to me. After I finished speaking to a group one time, there was complete silence at first. I thought that I had bombed. People then broke into applause. Afterwards, many people came to me and said that they were so moved by my talk that applause would have changed the energy and they wanted to just sit quietly with it for a moment and think about what I had said.

Anyway, just something to chew on...

[Cris]

Very good creative. Thanks for the great job.

Maybe I translate it in russian. =)

[Ivan Minic]

This blog simply gets better every day.
Another great article Guy, just keep it comin ;)

[tracy]

It occurs to me that these points are dead-on both for my day job as a trainer and also for my evening alter-ego as a musician. It seems a good performance is a good performance, no matter what it is you're performing!

(And Mike, you must be an Eddie Izzard fan!)

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Great list Guy, will take it to my next conference...

[zsarina]

Brilliant. Shall distribute it to my Toastmasters club members!

[alex smith]

i like everything you said. I remember giving pre-games speeches to my kids before the game and you are right about telling a story. They follow you so much more! good job!

[Andrew Fife]

Hey Guy:

rule number 12 must be after 20 years you get to break your own rules.

I saw you speak at SVAMA in December and you were both underdressed (in a hawaiian shirt) and gave a sales pitch for filmloop breaking both rules number 2 and 5! Also, you poked fun at Microsoft numerous times... does making fun of your former competition count as breaking rule number 6?

That said, it was a great speech and and I seriously doubt anyone wearing a tie in the audience was offended.

Lastly, and because you are such a good speaker, why don't you post your speaking engagements in a calendar on your website?

[Holly Paige]

Guy - #5 rang true with me. Last fall, I attended a school alumni/fundraising function in Silicon Valley. Everyone at the event was dressed in business professional attire. The host of the event, a fellow alum and a big Silicon Valley success story, wore topsiders and jeans. He was also had more money than everyone in the room combined. His unspoken message came through loud and clear!

[Kevin Stirtz]

I was just talking about this yesterday with my parents. Back in high-school and college they taught us very formal and rigid rules of how to give speeches. They never worked for me.

Now, after watching a lot of very good and very bad presentations, I can honestly say your advice is dead-on.

I would especially hammer home the idea of telling stories. Watch any professional. Comedian, politician, keynoter, etc. The best always tell stories and they do it well.

Nice job Guy!

Kevin Stirtz

[Dave Wheeler]

Guy,
Great post! I would add that Toastmasters speaking clubs are an excellent way to improve your presentation skills as well as an opportunity to practice, practice, practice! Toastmasters is also a great way to develop leadership skills and local clubs can be found by visiting www.Toastmasters.org. Can you tell that I'm a member?
(I also posted a link to your post on my blogs, www.areaA4.blogspot.com and theshot92.blogspot.com)

[Jinian]

Dressing in a suit in Hawaii may be true to #5, but loses on #4. A guy in a suit in Hawaii is an outsider. You can still overdress, but you wear an upscale silk Hawaiian shirt instead.

[Michael Sperger]

On #10, I think it was the political commentator Jeff Greenfield who once said, "If you expect to have seven people show up for your event, hold it in a phone booth."

[kevin]

Great insight Guy. I speak about once a month to various groups that involve different demographics and I have found all of these points to be true. Especially understanding and entertaining them. I also wish there were more people that realized that they didn't have anything to say. I heard one too mant folk speaking about nothing.
And to the guy that asked "should you speak to people that care how you dress." Your dress should never fog up your message, so whether you like it not, people care how you dress.

[Don Larson]

I suggest joining Toastmasters to improve speaking and leadership skills.

I've seen amazing results within my club over the last three years since I joined.

Don