Keys To A World Class Presentation: The Telephone Test

Orchestrate The Outcome

Do not ever write a talk, unless you know the action. If you don't know the action how could you possibly write the talk?

People say "because I know the topic..." it's not about the topic, it's about the action! Leaders lead people to take action that's why they are called "leaders". Make sure that you are a leader when you get on the platform.

Prepare Your Points

Preparing your points require some simple elements first of all. We have to appreciate that there is one word in the English language that is critically important to any presentation. It's the most important word you'll ever use. The word, is the word - "YOU".

YOU

When I use the word "you", who am I talking to?

When I say "you", I'm talking to YOU.

When it comes to presenting, at Present Like a Pro, we teach what's called The Telephone Test."

It works like this; if you can't do it on a telephone, don't do it on the platform because it won't make sense.

The Difference Between American & Australian Presenters

Unfortunately, I was trained by American presenters. Now the reason why I say "unfortunately" is because American presenters teach what's called "collective bonding". You collectively group people and as a result they bond together. But believe it or not the American culture is different to the Australian culture.

I was taught things like "QUEENSLAND! HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY?!" Basically, you're encouraged to pump up the audience into a collective frenzy, or to hype everyone up. And you're like "Seriously?!"

That doesn't fly here in Australia. But here's the thing, we have a bit of a thought virus that transcends generations here on this country and it's a very, very dangerous idea.

I'll explain the difference between America and Australia:

Let's just say you're going by a brand new Mercedes Benz in America. Let me tell you the first thing you do; you drive straight to your friend's house with the horn on. When you get to your friend's house, you leave the horn on, you wind down your window and say "Check out the Benz!"
They go crazy! They're so happy for you, genuinely!

Now, if you get a new Mercedes Benz in Australia, you pick it up as late as possible from the dealer. Hoping the sun has gone down, then you sneak it in to your garage, hoping none of your neighbours see it. And if anyone catches you driving, you sound "Uhm, uh. wha- this thing? How are you doing?"

You don't tell your friends for fear of being labeled.

"Ahhhh. You got a Mercedes Benz?" That's actually our culture, it's very sad that we hide our greatest successes from our best friends. That's sick, that's an illness because we love the battler until you become so wealthy and you don't have to battle anymore then we hate you with every cell in our body.

What we have to learn is in Australia we like humble presenters which is really cool because listen carefully: if you can present in Australia, you can present in any country in the world. Because we are one of the top 3 toughest audiences in the world. Truly, we are.

So, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere - literally as that song says! Because we need you to be as humble as possible otherwise, we don't really resonate. American speakers come to me and I'll privately train them for 2 or 3 days. I get them stage ready for Australian audiences, because otherwise they get on there with the American "psyche" and they talk to us and we're like "Wha-? How up yourself can someone be?!"

We just don't get it, but over there it's like totally normal because they celebrate people's success. We just don't understand.

It took me a number of years to take that out of my system because it was the first time I learned presenting, unfortunately. So I had to untrain the skill and now I'm grateful that I've gotten back to "you" because you came here on your own. You might have come with friends but you came here for your own reasons, and I want to address "you" and want to talk to "you" because you deserve that.

So use the word "YOU".