Over the previous two decades, I have been regularly asked by speakers and media personnel – “what does it take to be a competent speaker – is it style or substance?”
For some this seems to be a very apparent answer – it need to be a triumph of substance over style for an individual to describe themselves as a competent keynote Business Speaker – but this is not as clear reduce as it could look.
The truth is that organizations and men and women are at the moment operating in an focus deficit society – statistics show we are inundated with stimuli – one hundred,000 words a day – 34g of information – individuals tend to be distracted from their job inside 3 minutes 11 seconds according to research from the University of California – the bottom line is that it is challenging to get people’s interest.
Therefore the conventional version of the keynote speaker podium speaker is gone – long gone in my own humble opinion. Unless the content material is incredibly groundbreaking and original – even then, I cannot see how you can engage an audience previous a few minutes.
As a funny aside, I keep in mind speaking at a conference a handful of years back – as typical, I was offered the “graveyard shift” ie just following lunch! As is standard for me, I try to attend an earlier session to get some insights into the content and audience. Halfway through the first speaker, a guy in front of me fell quickly asleep – to make matter worse he was snoring loudly. To make matters even worse, the speaker continued with his podium address!!
So how do we accomplish maximum engagement in the current atmosphere?
For me style assists in the communication of your core message.
In my interactive keynotes the focus is on transferring keynote speaker messages via a cocktail of stories, the most up to date analysis and workout routines.
1. Stories tend to bypass a person’s conscious filtering technique. As an aside of course storytelling is very significantly component of my own heritage and DNA – Irish folks are identified worldwide for their capacity in this ability!
two. Workout routines add emotion to the transfer of key details – folks may locate it challenging to keep in mind information, but the odds of retention are substantially enhanced when interaction and emotion are added. In any interactive keynote there will be a minimum of 3 exciting workout routines with critical attached details.
And of course the assumption underpinning all this that the content is edgy and informational – this is exactly where content primarily based on the most up to date research is a essential prerequisite for good results.
So be a Keynote Company Speaker of substance….and style is the keynote speaker advice!