I’ve noticed that a lot of speakers have problems when creating and delivering their presentations. A lot of speakers wonder if they should give a ton of content or cut back on the content and just make the presentation really entertaining.
On the one hand, if you’re the speaker, you’re thinking that everyone wants some useful content that they can go home with and actually implement. On the other hand, you know that if you’re boring from the stage then people might throw tomatoes and hate your guts.
So you’re not sure if you should just give a ton of content or just be really entertaining.
The answer is actually very simple…
There shouldn’t be a difference between your content and entertainment.
Content is just content. It’s the words you use. And the entertainment portion is the delivery of your content. They’re actually two different things that feed off each other and to have a great presentation, you need both.
It’s like you’re making tea and you ask, should I use a tea bag or should I boil water?
Well you need both if you want to make tea.
And the same goes for your presentation.
Now when you’re getting paid speaking gigs what most speakers don’t know is that they’re there more for entertainment rather than their actual content.
Think about it like this…
Lets say you get hired by XYZ company and they want a speaker to talk about goal setting. And lets say that they really just want the content. They just want a speaker to get on stage and go over how to set goals, how to achieve goals, that type of stuff.
If it were just about the content, they wouldn’t need to pay a speaker. They would have someone in-house do it. They would just say, “Hey John, we created this presentation on goal setting that we want everyone to know about and we want you to present it at our annual conference.”
If they did that then it wouldn’t matter who presents the content, they just want the content.
But that’s not how it works.
They hire a professional speaker because they know a professional speaker can deliver content in an entertaining way.
I see a lot of speakers who have a hard time getting booked and getting the paid gigs. They know they have a great message, but for some reason, they can’t seem to book a $10,000 speaking gig to save their life…why is that?
The reason is because they’re so focused on content that they forget the entertainment portion.
They have a blog on their website to show their content, they have the names of their programs on their website to talk about what they’re going to talk about. And maybe they have a video of them delivering the content.
But what are companies really looking for when they’re hiring?
Well if they see a speaker who talks about goal setting and he’s boring…he’s guaranteed to not get hired. But if they see a speaker and the crowd is laughing, the speaker is all hyped up, you see the speaker doing something interactive with the audience…well now you’re thinking, “Oh this looks cool.” And you’re more likely to hire that speaker.
I want you to think about a speaker who you thought was really good, but a speaker who isn’t well known. So someone like Tony Robbins or Brian Tracey or Les Brown, they don’t count. Think of an event you went to and maybe you saw a speaker who was really good.
Now, I want you to see if you can remember 3 things they actually talked about in their presentation? Can you remember? Just 3 things they said?
Now notice how hard it is to come up with 3 things. And that’s just 3 things…they probably talked for 60 minutes and you can’t even remember 3 things they talked about. In fact, even if you chose a well known speaker like Tony Robbins, you still can’t remember 3 things despite being exposed to him several times through his books, courses, and all that stuff.
That’s what happens to your audience.
They can’t remember what you said, they only remember how you made them feel.
If you thought of an unknown speaker you liked, you probably liked them because of how they made you feel.
Maybe you thought, “This speaker has some serious speaking skills.” Or maybe you thought, “Damn! He’s giving out a lot of information…I love this guy.” Whatever it is, you might think you like the speaker because of their content, but you like the speaker because of how they made you feel.
People will forget what you said…they will forget your content. That’s why you have to focus on the delivery of your content.
You can’t separate content from entertainment…they’re the same thing and you need both to create a powerful presentation.