Dan Martell - 5 Tips To IMPROVE Public Speaking For Beginners

00:00:00.000 Hey there, Dan Martell here,

00:00:01.180 serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.500 In this episode, I'm gonna share with you

00:00:05.020 the power of public speaking.

00:00:07.860 I'm gonna share with you the strategies

00:00:09.460 and tips for beginners.

00:00:10.860 I'm gonna go all the way back.

00:00:12.120 I've been speaking now for 10 years,

00:00:14.020 but I'm gonna go all the way back

00:00:15.300 to the specific strategies that I think

00:00:18.000 are gonna serve you at the beginning stages

00:00:20.220 and make it really easy for you to approach public speaking.

00:00:23.880 Be sure to stay at the end where I'm gonna share with you

00:00:25.320 one of the most powerful talks I've ever given,

00:00:28.180 the one that's gotten the most recognition

00:00:29.720 and impacted the most people.

00:00:31.840 It's called Everything in My Power.

00:00:33.440 I'll tell you more about that in a bit.

00:00:35.100 Let's get into it.

00:00:48.600 So my journey to public speaking starts like over a decade ago, 2008.

00:00:53.700 I moved to San Francisco.

00:00:54.900 I just sold my company back in Canada where I grew up.

00:00:58.180 And I wanted to practice a new skill

00:01:00.780 and get involved in the startup community

00:01:03.080 and connect with people.

00:01:04.220 And I figured, you know,

00:01:05.000 maybe it's time to overcome this fear.

00:01:07.740 I mean, I used to get,

00:01:08.800 my neck would get this big bright red dot right there.

00:01:11.560 It's like a birthmark.

00:01:12.700 My hands would get like crazy sweaty.

00:01:14.640 My armpits would get all like wet and like sweaty.

00:01:18.280 And I was just, I wanted to stay away from it.

00:01:21.760 I figure I'm a programmer.

00:01:22.960 I grew up as more of an introvert writing code.

00:01:25.200 and then slowly I had to like learn how to lead teams

00:01:28.240 and give talks at annual planning meetings

00:01:31.180 and birthday parties and stuff.

00:01:33.560 And it's just something I wanted to learn.

00:01:35.640 So I'm in this coworking space

00:01:37.440 and the owner comes up to me and they ask me what I do

00:01:40.740 and I share with them that I'm in the marketing

00:01:42.360 and sales and stuff.

00:01:43.600 And they say, well, could you do a session?

00:01:45.200 And everything in my body said, don't say yes.

00:01:48.440 Just say you're busy, you can't do it.

00:01:50.900 And I said, yes.

00:01:52.080 And I ended up doing my first workshop

00:01:54.260 at this coworking space, San Francisco.

00:01:56.920 I think there might've been seven people that showed up.

00:01:59.820 That was cool.

00:02:01.000 I'm okay with seven.

00:02:02.120 And I gave my talk and I got a little bit of excitement for it.

00:02:08.040 I felt confident.

00:02:08.880 I was like, oh, I sounded like I knew what I was talking about.

00:02:12.040 And all these things you say to yourself in your head.

00:02:14.240 Now, fast forward to today,

00:02:16.020 I get paid tens of thousands of dollars to give keynotes,

00:02:19.140 sharing powerful messages.

00:02:20.920 I have one of the largest YouTube channels

00:02:23.220 on the internet for B2B software founders.

00:02:27.580 So I teach software entrepreneurs

00:02:28.840 how to scale their companies.

00:02:30.220 I fly all over the world and give talks.

00:02:33.360 It's kind of something I used to do a whole lot more.

00:02:35.620 And now, because I'm heads down building companies,

00:02:37.940 it's something that I have to say less and less to.

00:02:40.680 But I speak pretty much on a weekly basis.

00:02:43.540 It's my art form.

00:02:45.240 It's the thing I do today.

00:02:46.900 And I make incredible income from doing that

00:02:50.400 outside of my main companies.

00:02:52.680 And I wanna share with you, if I had to go back,

00:02:54.940 the five strategies that I think

00:02:57.320 would have gotten me there faster

00:02:59.100 in regards to the quality

00:03:00.420 and the confidence around speaking,

00:03:02.660 especially if you're a beginner.

00:03:03.780 Let's get into it.

00:03:04.780 Number one, always say yes.

00:03:07.080 So right after I agreed to give my talk

00:03:09.800 at this coworking place, I called my buddy Gare.

00:03:12.660 So Gare is Gare Maxwell.

00:03:14.240 You can Google him.

00:03:15.060 He is a professional speaker.

00:03:17.600 He's been doing this for 25 years.

00:03:19.000 his delivery is impeccable his wordsmanship his his energy his ideas that he brings to the market

00:03:28.200 I mean he there's a reason why he's he's one of the top speakers and I remember saying to Gare

00:03:32.760 I was like hey Gare I need to learn how to be a better speaker what do you suggest and his feedback

00:03:38.000 to me was always say yes and I'm like that's the feedback out of all the things not around like

00:03:45.060 story structure or like routines before you get on stage or like how to prepare anything. He's

00:03:49.380 just like, always say yes. He goes, most people just need to put in the reps. And, and he, and

00:03:54.640 he explained to it, the yes is, uh, if you get asked to give a speech at a wedding, say yes.

00:03:59.440 If you get asked to, uh, is anybody want to say anything in a meeting? Say yes. Like, like literally

00:04:04.760 anytime you're getting anxious to speak, you have to stand up and say yes to yourself. Maybe not

00:04:11.560 out loud like, yes, I'll do it. But like in your head, you know, you know when you have opportunities

00:04:17.680 and you just need to start by just doing it. Always saying yes, committing to the date and

00:04:23.420 then figuring out how you're going to deliver later. Number two, the triple T, W-I-I-F-T-N-E-T-R. 0.98

00:04:31.340 We've got three acronyms. I'm going to break them down and share with you exactly how you should

00:04:35.820 think through them and why if they're missing, you're talking literally fall flat. So there's

00:04:40.940 three things. Number one is triple T. First, you want to tell them what you're going to tell them.

00:04:45.180 You want to tell them. And then you want to tell them what you told them. Okay. It's really that

00:04:48.760 simple. At the beginning of any talk, you're going to start off and you say, here's what I'm going to

00:04:52.420 tell you today. I'm going to share this point of view. Then you share that point of view. And at

00:04:56.700 the end you say, I just want to recap what I just shared with you. It sounds crazy, but that is the

00:05:03.440 structure of any good talk is because some people forget. And it's just a really clean way of just

00:05:08.940 It's like beginning, doing the thing,

00:05:11.400 and then figuring out how you're gonna flow to the end.

00:05:13.980 But that's the first triple T.

00:05:15.480 The other one is W-I-I-F-T, okay?

00:05:17.840 What's in it for them?

00:05:20.640 Every person that's sitting in the audience

00:05:23.180 listens to the speaker and they wanna know,

00:05:25.200 how is this going to help me?

00:05:27.440 Some speakers, especially when you start

00:05:29.000 doing more public speaking, you make it about you.

00:05:33.040 So I want you to make sure you always ask yourself,

00:05:35.120 what's in it for them?

00:05:36.020 And what are the specific benefits

00:05:38.460 they're going to achieve at the beginning?

00:05:41.580 Tell them, like, from this talk,

00:05:43.400 you'll learn this, this, and this.

00:05:45.280 If you don't do it, people don't lean forward

00:05:48.120 to wanna listen because they don't know

00:05:49.700 what they're gonna get from you, okay?

00:05:51.080 So that's the second acronym.

00:05:52.300 ETR, the most important, in my mind, is earn the right.

00:05:57.620 ETR means that at the beginning of a talk,

00:06:01.580 YouTube video, Facebook video, stage presentation,

00:06:05.640 whatever it is, even if you're giving a talk,

00:06:08.200 you know, amongst, and all my companies

00:06:09.980 do these things called team upgrades,

00:06:11.720 and it's the time for everybody to teach something.

00:06:15.380 It's a 10 minute tactic.

00:06:16.800 And the ones that miss the opportunity to earn the right

00:06:19.980 to share their story about how they learn the thing

00:06:22.720 they're about to teach,

00:06:24.180 it misses the opportunity to build credibility.

00:06:26.880 So it's like, if you've ever sat in an audience,

00:06:28.500 somebody starts talking about a thing

00:06:30.460 where they're trying to teach you,

00:06:31.600 but they don't tell you how they became the expert

00:06:34.240 or how they learn the thing,

00:06:36.140 then the whole time you're listening to it,

00:06:37.820 you're not really connecting with it

00:06:39.480 because you're like, why am I listening to this person?

00:06:41.940 For this specific topic, why is that person

00:06:44.640 the person I should listen to?

00:06:46.140 So if you look at all of my YouTube videos

00:06:48.600 and podcast interviews, et cetera,

00:06:49.800 I always start by trying to share my story

00:06:52.620 for the reason why I learned the thing

00:06:54.380 I'm about to talk with the person.

00:06:56.280 Those are the three acronyms.

00:06:58.000 Number three, start and end.

00:07:00.580 It really can be this simple.

00:07:02.420 Are you ready for the secret?

00:07:04.120 It is this, just know how you're gonna start

00:07:07.080 and know how you're gonna end.

00:07:09.440 And if you just have the beginning and the end figured out,

00:07:12.560 trust me, the fear of forgetting what to say

00:07:16.340 is not gonna be there

00:07:18.000 because you'll be able to just transition to the end.

00:07:19.660 The cool part is nobody knows

00:07:21.040 if you forgot to say something.

00:07:22.580 So many people, the beginners, you beat yourself up 1.00

00:07:25.380 because you're like, I should have said this

00:07:26.640 and I'm supposed to say that and da, da, da, da, da.

00:07:28.860 Nobody cares, nobody knows.

00:07:30.680 They literally don't know.

00:07:32.040 you know if you forgot to tell a story i do it all the time i'm like man i forgot to close the

00:07:37.380 loop on this story i forgot to tell this part or this thing but nobody knows except for me

00:07:41.320 all i focus on is when i get on stage i've got the first five minutes figured out how do i start

00:07:47.620 you know what's the joke i'm gonna tell what's the point i'm gonna make what's the first five

00:07:51.980 minutes i just make sure that that's good and then at the very end how am i gonna finish this

00:07:56.700 off? How am I going to put a nice little bow tie on this talk? And I need to know how I'm going to

00:08:02.060 end. And then obviously I've outlined the rest of it, but if I can have the beginning figured out

00:08:06.500 and the ending figured out, it takes all the pressure off. So make sure you figure out how

00:08:10.820 you're going to start and how you're going to end. Number four, point, story, metaphor. Okay. So

00:08:16.720 pretty much if you want to say like, Dan, give me the least amount of things I need to remember to

00:08:22.720 tell a good speech. I'm going to say point, story, metaphor. Okay. And this is true for

00:08:28.520 any speaking, team speaking, social media videos, whatever, whatever. Here's how it works is you,

00:08:35.280 again, it's back to the, tell them what you're going to tell them. It's like, you have to have

00:08:37.760 a point. Okay. So like strategies for speaking as a beginner. Okay. So that's the point story.

00:08:45.580 How did you learn that strategy? You tell the story. Why, why did this come to you? And what

00:08:51.940 did you discover? And what's the journey? And what does your life look like today? A lot of people,

00:08:55.840 including myself, I forget to, how does my life look different today? I always tell like the

00:09:00.340 challenges and I learn this thing, but I don't resolve the story. Okay. So tell the story. And

00:09:05.180 then the metaphor for me is, is almost acts as like a, so the story's the glue. So I have a point

00:09:11.360 I want to talk about. The story's the glue. The metaphor is kind of like a hardening,

00:09:17.200 kind of like, it locks it in the mind. So the metaphor is kind of a visual representation of

00:09:23.260 what you're sharing. So for example, a great metaphor, if I'm talking like the point is

00:09:27.540 that you need to let go of excuses. Okay. Because those excuses are holding you back. And I'll tell

00:09:33.660 a story about a time in my life where I had excuses and I was making up all these reasons

00:09:37.540 why I couldn't do something and I overcame it. And now this is what I accomplished. This is what

00:09:41.400 my life looks like today. And one of the metaphors I like to use for that is, you know, think of it

00:09:45.780 this way. Every excuse you have on a daily basis, you've come up with one excuse. It's like a one

00:09:50.100 pound weight that you put in your backpack. Okay. And you're trying to climb this ladder of success.

00:09:56.500 Okay. So everybody's trying to climb the ladder of success for their own world, what their success

00:10:00.240 definition is. And if every day you have a new excuse and you put that extra pound of weight

00:10:05.840 in your backpack, that new excuse, boom, after 30 days, that backpack gets some heavy and you're

00:10:12.120 trying to climb this ladder of success. Is it going to be easier? Is it going to be harder?

00:10:15.580 It's gonna be harder.

00:10:16.740 So we need to learn how to get rid of those excuses,

00:10:20.260 take action and keep the commitments we make to ourselves

00:10:23.520 because that is how we create confidence.

00:10:25.600 That's a metaphor.

00:10:26.840 So you see how like having a point,

00:10:28.940 here's what I wanna share,

00:10:30.080 then telling your own story about how you learned it,

00:10:32.420 maybe the three lessons learned out of that

00:10:33.900 and then finishing off with a metaphor

00:10:35.500 is just this beautiful focused way to share

00:10:39.440 and to speak and to learn how to tell a story.

00:10:41.820 Number five, act as if.

00:10:43.380 So a lot of folks, when they get on stage and look,

00:10:47.080 I get it's authenticity, et cetera.

00:10:49.580 They'll get up and they'll say,

00:10:50.580 hey, I'm really nervous.

00:10:52.180 Or hey, I'm sorry, I'm really nervous.

00:10:54.180 Or they'll say something to the audience

00:10:56.060 that they're nervous.

00:10:56.900 Here's the deal, anybody sitting in the audience

00:10:59.100 looking at the person on stage thinks to themselves,

00:11:01.300 I could never do that.

00:11:02.240 I'm so glad they didn't ask me to do that.

00:11:04.260 Oh my gosh, I wonder if they're nervous

00:11:06.040 and they look at them, blah, blah, blah.

00:11:07.160 Here's the crazy part.

00:11:08.340 Even though my, not only this little red spot right here

00:11:11.900 would get dark red, my whole neck would turn red

00:11:14.380 when I would speak.

00:11:15.520 And I knew this was happening.

00:11:18.020 Like this is crazy.

00:11:19.040 I'm like sitting there giving a talk

00:11:21.280 and my neck is getting crazy red because I'm nervous.

00:11:24.520 And you know, one time I was giving this talk at a college

00:11:27.980 and one of the students puts their hand up

00:11:29.840 and I think they have a question and they go,

00:11:31.820 excuse me, sir, is there something wrong with you

00:11:33.880 because your neck is really red?

00:11:35.380 I think you're having an allergic reaction.

00:11:38.600 Imagine, like that could have been a showstopper for me

00:11:43.840 from giving more talks, but I just decided,

00:11:46.280 hey, that's my body, that's who I am.

00:11:48.540 I'm not gonna let that stop me.

00:11:50.100 And I never acknowledged it.

00:11:51.600 I never mentioned it.

00:11:52.640 I never said, hey, before I get gone,

00:11:54.560 I just want you to know my neck's gonna turn red.

00:11:56.260 And there's a good chance that you're gonna think

00:11:59.140 there's something wrong with me,

00:12:00.120 but just pay attention to my words and the stories.

00:12:03.360 I promise they're gonna be good.

00:12:05.260 And this is what's crazy is now it doesn't happen anymore.

00:12:09.340 It's the comfort level.

00:12:10.720 Eventually it's like, why do I get, you know,

00:12:13.480 read when I'm on stage,

00:12:15.680 but I don't get that way when I'm talking to a friend

00:12:17.820 and I just practice and practice and practice.

00:12:19.720 And now, you know, now if it's a big audience,

00:12:22.260 it can happen sometimes,

00:12:23.640 but for the most part, it's very rare.

00:12:26.100 And like, you can go through and look at

00:12:28.360 on my YouTube channel, all the times,

00:12:30.760 it does happen even in videos,

00:12:32.160 but I'm okay with it because I just,

00:12:34.720 I have a higher why than the downside of that happening.

00:12:38.140 And I know for whatever it is for you,

00:12:39.680 again, you might get sweaty, you might get stuttering,

00:12:43.060 you might get whatever,

00:12:44.200 but I'm gonna highly, highly encourage you

00:12:46.220 just getting on stage, acting as if,

00:12:48.980 acknowledging your power, acknowledging your greatness,

00:12:51.520 the fact that you're there to give selflessly

00:12:53.640 to the audience, right?

00:12:55.220 Because that's the other thing.

00:12:56.060 When we get nervous, it's because we're being selfish

00:12:58.160 about how we're worried we're gonna be interpreted.

00:13:00.500 We're not there thinking, how do I give?

00:13:02.920 Like before I do a session, I get in my head,

00:13:06.400 I go, who needs my best work today?

00:13:08.920 Who needs my best today?

00:13:11.600 And I'm showing up for that person.

00:13:13.620 And that's one person.

00:13:14.720 I don't care if there could be tens of thousands

00:13:16.300 of people that hear this.

00:13:17.660 I'm giving 100% to that one person

00:13:20.360 that needs to hear this the most today.

00:13:22.160 And that is act as if.

00:13:24.500 Just act as if you are that rockstar speaker

00:13:27.380 that you will become if you keep practicing and saying yes.

00:13:30.720 So quick recap, see what I'm doing there?

00:13:32.560 I'm telling you what I just told you.

00:13:34.680 Wink, wink.

00:13:35.280 I used this in my own life.

00:13:36.560 You now are part of it.

00:13:37.420 So one, always say yes.

00:13:39.380 Two, the three T's, the what's in it for them and the ETR.

00:13:43.540 Three, start and end.

00:13:45.660 Four, point, story, metaphor.

00:13:48.720 And five, act as if.

00:13:51.020 As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:13:52.700 I wanna share with you the power of belief talk

00:13:55.300 that I gave at my friend Giovanni's Archangel event.

00:13:58.300 The link is below if you wanna see an example

00:14:00.500 of me speaking on stage

00:14:02.380 and sharing a very personal story of transformation

00:14:04.920 that I went through

00:14:06.400 that's really the reason I've had any success in my life.

00:14:09.040 So if you wanna check that out as an example,

00:14:11.340 click the link below.

00:14:12.100 You can check that out.

00:14:12.880 If this video may help a friend,

00:14:15.180 feel free to share it with them directly.

00:14:16.420 If you like it, smash the like button,

00:14:18.600 subscribe to my channel.

00:14:19.880 And as per usual, I wanna challenge you

00:14:21.440 to live a bigger life and a bigger business.

00:14:23.620 And I'll see you next Monday.

00:14:26.340 www.com.

Dan Martell - January 11, 2021

5 Tips To IMPROVE Public Speaking For Beginners

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