“Opened Dawes” Podcast – Ep 10: Public Speaking – A Skill Not Just for Presentations!

This is the podcast of  “Opened Dawes” Live, which runs weekly as a live video show on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn at 11 am on Tuesday mornings so that we can throw open the doors and welcome you in for a relaxed sharing of information, tips, thoughts, and answering any questions about public speaking and presentation/communication skills you may have.

So, make sure you set the reminders for the shows on Facebook or YouTube (links below) as they are scheduled online and get involved.  The stream is designed to be interactive, with comments/questions able to be shown and attributed on screen.

This week’s show looks at the myth that “public speaking” is only a skill for those that stand up and give presentations.  Much to our marketing experts’ disgust, we have found that not only is it a skill and developmental benefit that is industry, company size, and job role agnostic, but it applies to people for plenty of reasons others than presenting, and we will delve into those areas and how it has benefited people even more than they may have realised.

Whilst the discussion will of course include listening and speaking (in a ratio many forget), the title two “sides” in this show are actually EMOTION and LOGIC.  Tune in to see why they are so important, what each of them achieves, and how you can make sure of their presence in your sales communications.

This show can be watched live (and previous shows recorded) from the following locations:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/OpenDawesTraining/live

YouTube:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCnwlPiWylgEDLrwemI8ZZjw (or search YouTube for Open Dawes Training and click subscribe to be notified)

Thanks to:
www.opendawestraining.co.uk
www.chrisdawescomms.co.uk
www.opendawestraining.co.uk/connect

Transcript

1:16

Greetings. Welcome to Opened Dawes Live. My name is Chris Dawes, founder of Open Dawes Training. And this is Episode 10. We're into double figures. Fantastic. I hope you all had a great weekend. And today's show is almost what to put the title is something like, you know, a dog is for life, not just for Christmas, but it's presentation. It's a skill, not just for presentations. So I've always battled with what I should be calling it, is it public speaking? Is it presentation skills? Is it communication skills? And the honest answer is it's all of the above. And it really varies what it is, that is the reason why somebody wants to or needs to work on this. What it is the objectives that I work on with people when we start the the training or the mentoring. And that's probably another reason why absolutely, absolutely love it. For me. It's It's where the name Open, Dawes Training came from and Yes, fine. It's my surname, but it is about the fact that it is a skill set that is not only used in countless areas that we'll cover some but achieves countless things. And it can open doors that you may not even know exist yet. So that's, that was the reason for the name for that for my company. And it's so genuinely true for me, you know, university, we had to present but I struggled with it, that whole idea of, of standing up and speaking formally with a structure and getting people's attention getting the information over in the correct way, the best way. I had a real issue. You know, it wasn't that I was a shy person, because I'd be holding court in the pubs. But once it was, it was a structure thing, I had an issue. So I kind of went into myself to work out what I was thinking, what I was feeling, and how I can trick my mind all of those things and how I can give it more structure. And then I've worked on that over the years, because after university I went into into business into sales and marketing, and I was presenting it solutions, either in meetings or massive, great big presentations. And I was able to take myself on a journey of what I was trying to achieve. And I still do it now when I'm delivering training and presentations and even things like this. And the journey that I've had with people of what it is they're trying to achieve is so enthralling, it's really really impressive. And quite often it It also has it where that their original remit might be one thing. But all of a sudden, once they're working on, they're going well actually, this can help me with this, this can help me with that. Or we speak again, some weeks, months, whatever further down the line, they go, Wow, do you know what it's actually helped us with this as well, especially when I work with groups of people within an organization, and they're all may be different departments is to see the variation of what they're going to get out of it. So I just want to delve a little bit because even for yourself, you might kind of go wow, okay, that would really help me with with this if I applied those skills that I have, or that that I want to work on, in presenting can actually help me here, there or anywhere. Now, yes, it's obviously presentations standing up for giving presentations, or seminar presentations. Of course it is. It does apply to that, but not just that. What about in meetings? Think about it, you've got to speak up in a meeting. Or how many times have you been in a meeting? And I don't know, let's say there's, there's 10 people in the meeting. And you suddenly realize, and if you haven't done this yet, do it in future meetings realize that actually, there's one or two people that aren't really participating, they aren't saying anything or, or they aren't saying a lot. And yet Think about it. They're from a particular department. They are working on particular things, they have particular experiences and things like that. And if you don't involve their experiences, their their knowledge, their opinions, your conclusion of that meeting is going to be slightly skewed. And I actually work with people specifically on that either to get people more involved, to make the meetings more productive, or to actually get people less involved. I think it's equally relevant to be honest in some situations, and trying to get people to get the level right and encourage others to get involved. It could be that they're fearful of conflict. tension is a big one, they're fearful of that they've got senior people with them. They don't have the confidence in what they're going to share with everybody that's there. Anything like that is understandable. And we work on that with people and try to get people more involved in those meetings and the organization's want everybody involved in those meetings, because it is actually helping. So it is communication skills for for meetings as well, sales pitches, the last show was specifically on sales communications. Well, it is very relevant in terms of sales pitches, or idea pitches. I've used an example that I had someone telling me that they had to almost pitch to the Board of Directors when for their department they needed, whether it's it's as big as investment or whether it's operational changes, or, or reasons for why something didn't go quite to plan, whatever it might be, they are pitching. And so you need to still give it the structure, if you have an objective to get at the end of this request this pitch, you need to give it the the time and thought to make it structured to make it punchy to really communicate it in a proper way. So all of the things that we cover in our public speaking training, is relevant to pitches, whatever that pitch happens to be. If that includes motivational pitches, you know, it could be that you, you know, you need to really motivate the troops, you know, the staff, the team, the department, the whole company, whatever it might be. And you need to give it the same structure as if you're giving a sales pitch because you kind of are selling to their money you're trying to get them to buy in. So even, you know, motivational pitches, and you might have somebody that is a manager or a director, or even a CEO, I've worked with CEOs that are kind of like, Well, you know, I'm an expert in this. And that's really how the company came into existence. But I'm not great at really rallying the troops or getting the information across, or I go into too much detail, I need to step it back. And we work on specifics like that. So it very much is of a very thing in terms of pitches. And that is something that we do a lot on. Even if it's via webcam. Now obviously on via webcam. Now. I think we all agree that we've had almost death by webcam over over the the lockdown period that the pandemic forced out on us. And I genuinely believe that it's going to stay face to face meetings has returned and will increase. But I think there's gonna be a huge appetite that suddenly says, Well, we can save money, we can save the environment, we can save time, we can increase productivity, by instead of suddenly traveling halfway up the country for a meeting and then back again and there's half a day or the whole day is suddenly you're able to have multiple meetings or you have a meeting, you go away, you do something, you can jump back on to a meeting, even the same day, potentially. It won't replace the face to face completely. But suddenly out of those, I don't know, three meetings for meetings or more. Over the course of a pitch or a project, whatever it might be, is that you know, the first one and the last one or something like that might be face to face and the rest of them via webcam. But people aren't fully comfortable with that whole idea because all we've got is this lens. And it's about changing the psyche to suddenly go well that's the eye contact. This right here, sorry if I'm poking you in the eye. But that is the eye contact and you almost have to have this change of way of thinking I have to do it when I'm doing any pieces to camera is that you just imagine that those people I can't imagine that I can see you watching me put that down you out there. Geez. But via webcam. It's still giving presentations. And we also work with people in terms of using the video conferencing solutions to the best way so I suddenly want to share a document of video and audio file I want to show my software or whatever it is that you need to demonstrate. And thankfully I've been doing that for all Crikey decade and a half probably because our software In my previous role, we had international clients and partners. And so I would be demonstrating via webcam. So thankfully, this was just a kind of, Oh, I need to do more of it that way rather than that way, but to be able to help people to feel a lot more comfortable via webcam and video conferencing solutions, it really helps a lot presentations, meetings, even providing training, and I this that was a new one for me this time, because I had to suddenly be providing my training last year via webcam. And I used to make a joke that actually other than the fact that you can't throw things at me, it's the same, you are able to make it the same. If you convince yourself No, it's not got the same on the same connection. And you kind of just downplay it a little bit, even unintentionally. Well, guess what, that's how it comes across. So by actually giving it that maximum, and really engaging with your audience, really exaggerate the enthusiasm, you're still going to connect with that training as well. Of course, you know, we talk about I said at the beginning presentations and seminars, of course, being the biggest presentations that we tend to do. Well, of course, webinars is an even bigger word these days, isn't it a buzz phrase, and to be able to do webinars is a big thing as well. So we work with people to be able to deliver a presentation, as they would be comfortable doing face to face via webcam as well. It's important. I've always said that seminars and webinars are your best way of sharing your knowledge. With an awful lot of people at a time, people will go to seminars, because they're interested, I'm not in the marketplace. I'm not letting you into my business as a meeting to try and sell to me, but I want to go and listen to this and be educated, get up to speed be updated, whatever it is. And that is your opportunity to have this wide array of people from different organizations, different industries, to share your knowledge to share your expertise to share your latest information. And even if it's not something right then and there that they go, I have to have that they have been informed they go back to their daily operations. And something happens a day later a week later, or a month, a year, whatever it might be later. And they'll go Do you remember that seminar we went to that would have been really helpful here, this would have stopped that from happening here. always had a phrase that my old man taught me was if you don't tell you can't sell and seminars are a fabulous opportunities, opportunity to impart that information. Now webinars to some extent, you could say, well, Surely it's not going to be quite the same. Why not? Think about it, you might get more people going to a webinar because they don't actually have to go anywhere. They can do it in between their bits and pieces that they're doing. Fine. We work with people to overcome that. Yes, but I can't see that they're nodding their laughing as much. I tried to encourage people to enable that so they can see their audience but some instances you can't find we switch the the psychology of it around a little bit. But it's a great opportunity for them to see. you're offering your product, your service, your expertise, your latest information. So webinars and seminars are absolutely priceless in terms of public speaking skills. I've the the the the slogan with Open Dawes Training is actually communication skills that remove limits. And that's what we really set out to do about removing limits. For me, it was very much that it removed limits, I was able to do these presentations and get great success with our software at meetings and web seminars and an online demonstrations as well as face to face. And then progress to me that the next thing I'm getting paid to commentate on motorsport around Europe, as well as in the UK. Then from that I've suddenly I'm hosting awards nights and live events and still do all of that kind of stuff. So if anybody's watching they need, you know, even business events hosted I do those kinds of services for people and presenting on TV, radio, podcasts, other people's podcast guests in on those Master 74 different things. You know the The things that I've managed to get into doing has been quite incredible. And I still pinch myself and I feel very, very lucky. It removed limits that my nervousness, my lack of understanding, standing of the preparation that was required and structures and engagement levels and all of that sort of stuff. Well, that is what happened there. But the communication skills can be as simple as having conversations with people. Now, I've had people use it, you know, the training, even in their personal life. And that's great, I feel very touched. And I've had some lovely, lovely emails that were really quite emotional, where they fed back the the difference that it is made to their day to day life has been significant. And I absolutely adore that. Because it did start as a project of passion, best for me, because I wanted to help people. And it still resonates with me when people are able to help their life in general, not just in terms of career progression, but just their personal life as well. But bringing those together is one that comes up very often is about when you've got to have that difficult conversation. And it becomes a real struggle on how am I supposed to deal with this I've got to have, whether it's I don't know whether it's a disciplinary, whether it's somebody who's come with a request, and you've got to knock it back, but you need to knock it back in a positive way, whether there's decisions are being made with the organization that people could misinterpret. Because it's not just about having that difficult conversation. It's making sure you're having the right conversation. You know, you are sharing the correct information in the correct way. etc. Jonathan Tennant, were you down at Brands Hatch at the Italian day? Absolutely. That was me, sir. I'll take it. That means you were done there. Great event. I absolutely adore doing that one. And I'm down at brands actually Saturday and Sunday as well. And Encarta Kumar Monday, commentating so thank you for your comment there. You see, you can put your comments in, and they can come up on screen. So thank you for that, Jonathan. And another one is taken it further from from meetings and presentations is conferences. And often, thank you very much, Jonathan. Hugely appreciated. I love that one. Because it's entertainment as well as commentating isn't it, we have a real giggle with everybody. So thank you, Jonathan. Much appreciated, I do enjoy myself when I'm doing that. Sorry, conferences, the now that could be you know, conferences for your industry with with potential prospects, that stupid phrase potential prospects, I think they're just prospects or potential customers, aren't they? So we'll go with that prospects that are listening to information at conferences. But I've done an awful lot with people high up in organizations, where their internal conferences like their big annual International Conference, or whatever, or even National Conference of everybody within their organization gets together, updates on everything that has happened over the last year is going to happen over the next year and a bit of training done on certain elements, whatever it might be, I work with people on those. And in fact, one thing that I did, as well, last year, was that I worked with a lovely lady for an organization up in Manchester, who she was going to be training her people that had to give presentations, both by a webcam and at these conferences in face to face as well. And she needed to have some top up training for herself on doing all of this. But also how to then train the others. And I know everybody else she spoke to was like, nope, we provide that training, we will do it. We're not training you to be able to do that. And she's like, Well, then, fine, we're not coming to you. We can't it's not up for debate. You can't convince me that is not happening. And on an ongoing basis. big company would be lovely, of course. But that it was clear, it was a condition not an objection. It was not changing. It was an absolute condition. And I said, Well, why Why can I not going to take my IP or anything like that, I'm going to give her a bit more training on presenting on delivering training. And then she's able to go and take something that I'm very passionate about, that people can really grow and learn from, and she's going to help people and, you know, we still stay in contact now and do some little bits and pieces here and there. And it's really, really nice that she's been able to do that. So I've tried a trainer Lot of trainers, in fact trainings, one that comes up somewhere and I think I've flipped over that. But training delivery internal for your products or services or training that you can sell. It's another area of this. So that kind of spun on from conferences to training, because there was a link up for a customer last year where it was training people to present at conferences, and I do a lot of that. And she did that with her people. similar vein, but sometimes a lot more specific is exhibitions and, and trade shows. And I worked with an insurance property insurance organization that would do a lot of industry specific trade shows. But I don't know if any of you have, if you'd like manda stand where you have, you know, an exhibition stand, and you've got all these people that are coming past the stand. And you've actually got to try and engage them to get them to come and speak to you. It's great if you've got something that's just automatically pulling them in. But so often people kind of like, No, I'll just look or you got the freebie hunters, all that kind of stuff. I worked with them, they were the first one that I did this and created a whole new module as a result of, of of the work with them at their request for being able to start conversations at trade shows and exhibitions, how to take it in a good direction, and how to then get a conclusion at the end, you know, probably at that stage is more likely to be a you know, excuse me secure a follow up meeting that kind of thing. So that becomes another area that suddenly public speaking or presentation skills gives us advantages in other areas. Networking. I don't know if any of you may be done. Excuse me, maybe done. Like networking, breakfasts, you get these organizations, or networking breakout sessions at, you know, conferences, exhibitions, and trade shows, and you have all these different people from different organizations. And you get to have conversations with them. So they're straightaway having those conversations instead of hiding in the corner, I find it hard to start with. But you get to meet some wonderful people, and they can introduce you to even more wonderful people. And you invariably get the opportunity to pitch your organization yourself your product, your service. in quite a short period of time, you know, it could be a short 60 seconds, you might get five minutes, and I'll tell you what I struggle more with, than having a free rein to be able to talk. So I work with people on networking opportunities, or should I say, people take the skills that we work on to use in those environments as well. It's a great environment, negotiations, that could be sales negotiations, it could be job negotiations, it could, you know, the list goes endless. But you need to have those conversations in a proper way, including listening, and thinking at the same time buying yourself time. You know, having the conversation steadily without emotion. Again, the difficult conversations is about you know, try not to have, you know, let the emotion run you but have that conversation in a nice chilled out way. Sales discussions, we've covered interviews. Now, that could be job interviews, it could be promotion interviews, it could be extended contract interviews, it could be media interviews, and I do a whole point on you know, media is another key area interviews, live shows, recorded videos, you know, marketing does a lot of this, where you do things to camera, podcasts, or maybe it's just audio rather than audio, visual, all these different things. Now, they could be interviews. Or it could be more, you know, job type interviews, whatever, all about having those conversations. You know, I've worked with people that they're suddenly like, going, I'm so nervous. I'm so terrified, and they speak at 100 miles an hour when they're in an interview. And he's like, just slow down and have a conversation with the person interviewing you. Hopefully, that person interviewing you is good enough to also be having a conversation, which incidentally, I also train interviewers, as well as interviewees. Because you're going to get more out of it. If you make your interview we feel more relaxed and take it into that conversation space rather than right I need to tell you this, this this isn't this I've done and I know that and I've done this. Just come down, slow down chat about it. Speeches a little bit different to presentations because they tend to have more of a script. You know, I'm very much about encouraging when you do presentations or step away from a script, have key bullet points that you want to cover, and then wrap it in the signal that comes to mind that time, but with a speech, more often than not, it's going to be a bit more scripted. So we might work on how to read a script, or how to maybe not fully, you know, word for word habit, but to remind you, you're going to talk about this, but a bit more than just bullet points, or read ahead and speak rather than read speak. And that could be I've worked with people on like, best man and what have you speeches, father of the bride, and groom speeches as well. But professional speeches, you know, they stand up at things such as conferences, or whatever, and it's more of a speech than a presentation. And it might even just be a short one, but they needed to be punchy crisis management, communication was an interesting one. And that came to me with someone saying, look, we have situations where the proverbial hits the fan, we need to communicate that with internal and external people as quickly as efficiently and with the right tone. Whilst we're potentially inside, you know, like the swan serenely across the top, but their feet go and tend to doesn't, doesn't. So they're not quite relaxed, but they've got to portray themselves as relaxed. So I ended up having a whole other area that I worked with people on crisis management communication as well. And able to team up with a PR lady as well that so that we can not just have my experience from the communication, the the actual communication side, but from the delivery, the the the outsource in terms of a PR message and PR sources and things like that. So that just added a really interesting additional element to it as well. In terms of the where we've also got the why what could you achieve motivation, justification, explanation, there's a lot of shins there isn't. recognition, you know, is about people being able to recognize how much you know, how passionate you are about things, how enthusiastic you are about things, how well you present, what you know, etc, as well how well you can train people and engage with people, you know, if the only way you're going to get recognition is being heard, if you're silent, you can get overlooked, unfairly. So recognition is a big one for me, that could lead on to things like promotion, more sales, bigger sales, it helps teamwork. It helps innovation, you know, both of those for me, in teamwork and innovation. If you don't communicate with each other, it isn't going to you're not going to get the results you deserve. And so it's critical to take innovation as an example is something I love the the notion of things are not invented invariably by someone, you know, we see the cartoons of someone waking up with the lightbulb above their head and that Eureka doesn't often fully happen like that they might have a Eureka nucleus of an idea. But it's then got to be expanded and everything else. And more often than not true innovation. And I don't just mean the, the thank you to Paul, need to drop out, we'll catch the last bit on your uploads. Great talk again, loads of food for thought. Thank you, mate. Look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks and see if I can stay at your house on the Friday as well, actually. But the you can watch this back, because it was the recorded version. And there's podcasts available as well. So jump on to Open Dawes Training dot code at UK forward slash Connect if you just want the easy bit and you'll see that they're uploaded as podcasts as well. Sorry, say so innovation is that somebody will have an idea. And if you share it with somebody, then they could suddenly have someone else they'll go well, I was thinking about this, but it wouldn't work because of what you're now so hang on. If we team together. We could actually make this work. And it's the two ideas coming together. Now what happens sadly and many of you may suddenly go Yep, I can understand that. I have that issue where you won't share your idea. Because you're like, well, in principle, surely that's a good idea. But there's something missing, that's really going to make it work. And that's something missing, by the way, could be just that confirmation that yes, it will, if you share it, and you don't need to do it all gung ho that, look at this, this will work. This is amazing. You kind of go, this is what I was worth thinking of working on, I believe this will happen. And somebody else goes, yes, it will, because of x, y, and Zed, but I was thinking and if we've I think my ABC with your x, y Zed, this is going to work. So sharing it is what enables innovation. I missed out a group, another area, by the way, but it's groups. We talked about motivation and things like that. And I've had people in weight loss or waste management groups. I've had I've trained personal trainers or exercise class trainers, they know they're good. They're very passionate about it. But they're really nervous about being at the front and being miked up. I've heard that several times now. And you know, all sorts of groups, there's a whole load of areas where to have that confidence, to manage your nerves, to know how to prepare for it, how to have your information, how to structure it, how to deliver it, how to have that connection, how to manage questions and answers, you know, all these different bits and pieces that come together as part of the public speaking training. It helps so many areas, and all you need to do is go away. And, you know, think, right, I don't actually give presentations. But actually, that that and that would really be beneficial to me, or I do do presentations, but hadn't thought about those other areas. It's the same as I work with people that do presentations, are perfectly happy giving presentations. But they want to now take it to a whole other level. And that is the beauty of public speaking. It's such a multi faceted thing. I think that's the phrase I'm looking for, that can help so many areas, it can open doors, you probably don't even know exist yet. I never dreamt that I would be a Motorsports commentator, and a host of live events and award shows, you know, the front in my Dicky bow and all of that sort of stuff on TV, radio, podcasts, all that never crossed my mind. In fact, people that knew me of old would go, No chance. Not the kind of confidence that I had. I've learned how to embrace it, how to, to nurture it. And anybody can I genuinely believe that doesn't mean that we're creating a blueprint, what we are doing is unlocking you, your personality, your passions, your delivery styles, your tone of voice, it's not about changing accents or anything like this, it is about unlocking you, so that you will share your information, your knowledge, your passions, your experiences with other people, it will help you grow. And it will help those around you grow as well. Think about things that you've been able to listen to, to watch to attend. And it's helped you to this day, it's stayed with you, it's it's helped you grow in knowledge, etc. There's countless things that you've got that can also help others to empower others. And it empowers you at the same time. It's it's like the opposite to a vicious circle. It's a lovely circle, where everybody's benefiting everybody. But if you stay silent, no one will know you have those. And you won't be able to help others with that information. So that's me that is Episode 10. of Opened Dawes Live. I hope it was useful. I hope it is sort of opened up the possibilities. Many of you will think of others you know, and do drop them. If you've got more examples. Drop them in comments, all of the above. Go to let me just put it up on the screen. Obviously, if you're listening back on the I forgot to put the overview on overlay. Sorry, if you're listening back on the podcast, then you won't see this but I will read it out is that if you go to open doors, that's da w e s training.co.uk. forward slash Connect. You don't need to put the connector on that will take you straight to our website. But this one just is a very simple landing page with a whole list of ways that you can connect with us. You can listen to things you can watch the You can read things, you can download some free things, all of that plus, you know, have a look at our cost, whether that's one to one for yourself, or whether it's for groups of people within your organization. All doable, whether it's face to face, you know, in person, whether it's via webcam. And we've also got this blended learning now, hybrid learning face to face and online, where over six hours and growing even more of training videos, audio lessons, practical exercises, then mentoring direct with myself, and we have recorded bits that we're able to analyze with you so that you truly take it as development rather than just training. And that means where you know this, where we've identified all these different areas is that you suddenly try to implement it in something else, and it throws up new questions or new thoughts. Totally accessible, that we have that ongoing, you've got 12 months access to all of the training videos and exercises and downloads and everything else. But also that there's a members only group where you can be asking questions, you can be feedback to other people, we get peer review opportunities, where you've got a presentation coming up, you can give that presentation to other members of the Open Dawes Training Academy. And they will be able to feedback as well as myself and the team. You can get it from other members. So it's all about trying to help you unlock those doors, open those doors that you might not know exist. That's it for me. Thank you so much for your time being much appreciated. And I look forward to seeing you again. Next week. Just realize I haven't sussed out what next week's shows going to involve but we'll check it out. And I will see you in just under a week now since we're past that at that time. Have a good week. Cheers. Oh,