The Speaker Success Toolkit: Writing the Talk That Gets Remembered

Welcome to the Speaker's Success Toolkit. This mini-series is a limited time series hosted by Financial Behavior Thought Leaders, and I'm Mary Bell Carlson. In this series, we're pulling back the curtain on what actually makes speakers successful. Not just the highlight reels or overnight stories, but the real work that comes behind being referrable, bookable, and having an impact. If you've ever watched off a stage thinking, well, that went well, but...

.

Why didn't it lead to more? This episode's for you. That's why we're starting this series with every speaking career should start, the talk itself. And today I'm joined by Deirdre Van Nest, one of the most trusted speaker coaches in the industry. Deirdre helps speakers turn ideas into signature talks that are clear, compelling, and memorable. Deirdre, I'm so glad you joined us to open the series.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Well, thank you for asking me.

It feels like the right place to start. And I know you and I have had several conversations about how you came into coaching. So we've talked a lot about your background of speaking, but kind of go into how coaching really changed you and how you've seen it change others' lives.

Hmm.

Yeah, I mean, if I hadn't been coached, I never would have stepped on a stage. So I think in another episode, I talk about how I had a really bad experience in my ninth grade acting class. I swore I would never step on a stage again, and I didn't for 24 years. And then when I started my coaching business, I was coaching entrepreneurs in their mindset. I realized I got to I got to tackle this fear. Like, got it. I got to get past this. It's actually limiting my capability.

and my opportunities by not being willing to speak in front of more than one person. And so the way that that happened for me, Mary, is I hired a speaking coach and through that it changed my life. So when my coach said, hey, I'm certifying speakers. Do you want to become one of my world-class speaking coaches? I was like, yeah, I do. I love this. I love what it's done for me. And I want to pay it forward and do that for other people.

I love it. And really when people come to you wanting to speak more, you always start in the same place. And that's with the content. So you've got a great story about why content matters so much. Would you give us that background of where you start there?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. People think that crazy good speakers, and let me just define what I mean by that. So crazy good speaker is someone who can grab attention right away. They can keep attention and they inspire people to take action. Okay, so people think a crazy good speaker starts out as a crazy good speaker. And that's a logical thought, but they don't. It actually starts with.

Hmm.

their writing skills, it starts with how they create their content and they put their messaging together. So I think the analogy that I like to reference, Mary, right, is have you ever seen a really great actor in a bad movie? And the answer is yes. We've all seen great actors in a bad movie. the movie that I think is, love Will Smith. Okay, I just think, I think he's great. And so there's a...

Mm-hmm.

Nope. Yeah.

that is going to hit those marks, right, of grabbing attention, keeping attention, inspiring action, the strength of your personality or delivery skills will only get you so far. But on the flip side, you might be a less charismatic person. I've worked with less charismatic personalities. And together, because we develop their content creation skills, they're able to knock it out of the park when they get on stage.

Well, and that makes so much sense because those that do have really strong skills sometimes just rely on the skills only and don't depend on the actual breadth and depth. I love that thought that the actor never rises above the level of the screenplay. And that's true of a speaker, right? If your content isn't good, it doesn't matter how gifted you are. It's you're just not going to knock it out of the park. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

No, and let me add to this, let me add one thing to that. So the content could be good content, but if it's not structured right, that's where they have the problem. So what most people, when they think about speaking or speech, they think about content and delivery, right? I've got good content and I know how to deliver it. Those two things do not equate into a crazy good speaker because in the middle is this thing called structure. So you've got to take that content, that interesting good content,

Mm-hmm.

make it interesting to the listener, because it might be fascinating to you. But a lot of times our topics are not fascinating to our listeners. We have to make it fascinating. That's where the structure comes in, and then we deliver it. Does that make sense? Okay, okay.

I love that. totally. And I want to hear from a speaker that came to you with lots of really good content, but then really left with a signature talk. What did that look like?

I would say one of my favorite stories is about my client Sheldon. So he's a financial advisor, successful in his business, came to me and he was basically like, dear, I just delivered a presentation and it bombed. Like that can never happen again. Okay. And if you've ever bombed a presentation, you know what that's like that. Yeah. And

Mm-hmm.

You know when you're bombed. Yep.

or just didn't do so great. I mean, it's a terrible, terrible feeling, right? So Sheldon had, he had good content, right? He had content that could really help his listener, his audience, content that they needed, but it wasn't structured in a way that was engaging and as relevant to them as it could have been. So for him, I said, well, what does bombed mean? He said, well, they just, weren't really engaged.

I left, you know, I wanted to set appointments and I didn't set any appointments. And he just didn't feel like that, that synergy, that kind of energy that one wants to feel when they deliver a presentation, right? And then he didn't have the backend reward that a lot of us and a lot of advisors in particular want when they're delivering a presentation. So what we did was we took that same content, Mary, it was the same basic principle of content, but we taught him how to structure it in a way.

that would be persuasive, that would make the emotional connection, that would really engage the audience. And once he had that, the presentation he delivered, was just four months later. Yeah, it was January to April, four months later, was vastly different. I got a call from him after and he said, like, this was so different, it was unbelievable. I had them from the first words out of my mouth. They were engaged the entire time. Before I left the room, I had 10 appointments on my calendar.

and they invited me back to speak again. And this was the same content, but it was structured so differently. And then it made it more fun and easier for him to deliver it.

That's when you know you hit a home run. Yep, yep.

I love that.

I love that. No, that totally makes sense. And really that feeling you get when you're like, I have it, I know it, right? That you're not having to refer back to notes or trip over your own stuff because you don't remember where it went, but you're just solid in that foundation makes it what we call a lot of times the referrable speech. It gets referred again and again and again because people know that's what they want to hear.

Yeah, and you have to make your content persuasive and emotionally engaging. I mean, that's the bottom line. That's the bottom line because people don't make any type of decision based on logic, they're based on emotion, and then they back their decision up with logic, right? So if you wanna be captivating and inspiring, you gotta hit them here.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So how do you do that? Give us one tip.

It's a process. It's weaving story analogy, what we call experience through your presentation. So it's you keep the energy moving, right? So you never go into lecture mode. You keep the energy moving and you weave in things like stories, analogies, very pointed questions, activities, role plays, props, videos. You weave those things throughout the content so that it just feels like this

Mm.

integrated experience rather than a lecture. And this is where the training comes in. Like if you were to say, we were talking beforehand, like why would someone want a speech coach? This is why you'd want a speaking coach. Most of us, myself included, we do not know how to do this on our own. This takes a whole new level of skill.

Well, and it also takes someone from the outside looking in and seeing what you don't see yourself. I think that's what as coaches is going to see every time is they've done it, they know it, and they can see areas and viewpoints that you're never going to catch. No matter how many times you rewatch it, you won't know how to restructure it and get that outside in help.

Alright.

Absolutely. And even if you're a great speaker, I have many clients who are actually really, really successful speakers, great speakers. But when they train with us, they're like, wow, I didn't realize I'd kind of hit a ceiling for the reason that you're talking about right there. They didn't necessarily know what places in the speech to look at to make it better. And then once they had someone who does this for a living, that expert advice, they were like, I didn't know I could be that much better.

Yes.

I just had a speaker I was working with last week who was like, my gosh, he leads a team of I think like 600 people. And he wants to be better because he knows that that's a big job to be leading 600 people. And so he wants to be the very best that he can be. He also would like to deliver our keynotes. And so he did a team. had a Christmas party, and I did a five-minute team, kind of like inspirational type of speech. And it was the first time that he had really like

Yeah.

and didn't just rely on his personality and wing it. And he said, my gosh, I got so many texts afterwards of people telling me how great it was, how inspired they were. And so everybody can benefit from outside expertise.

Well, and I think it makes a big difference having that. That's kind of what takes it from good to great is having that outside expertise, but also knowing what to add and what to structure, how to reframe. Often I find with speakers is they'll start, let's say with a breakout, right? And a how to one, two, and three. This is how you fix XYZ problem. And this is how to do it in three easy steps, which is good, you know, and sure for interesting for some.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

but a very different experience for, let's say, a keynote speech where you literally have thousands in the room and have to engage an entire audience full. How do you delineate that? How does that work for someone who's looking to create a signature talk versus just a speech?

So I guess for me, this is where I'm probably a little bit different than a lot of people, is that I create, how do I want to say this? I create keynotes. And so even if I'm in a breakout, I'm delivering the keynote, but I'm giving more space for conversation and taking action versus a lot of speakers create a breakout and then they're like, okay, well now I gotta perform at the keynote level. Does that make sense to the way?

Yep, yep.

The way I do it and the way we coach our clients is let's create the presentation that's sort of the pinnacle presentation and then it's adapted for the breakout versus let's start here and then try to get there. So I want to train them for the Olympics so they can totally perform at the college level versus let's get you ready for college and at some day you'll be able to perform in the Olympics.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

I love that.

So how, what is that differentiator for you when you say you do it at a keynote level? What does that mean?

Yeah, for me, the differentiator really is having the skill to master the weaving in of those stories that we're talking about earlier. The stories, the analogies, the experience, the well-placed questions, right? And it's very, it's tight, it's choreographed, it's well-practiced. mean, it feels like an experience, and it's kind of like a show.

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. I would definitely say keynotes are, the memorable keynotes are experiences. They're not speeches, they're not lectures, they're experiences. The other part that I've heard it said from the referable speaker, they'll say, you know, most breakouts will tell you how to do something. And then it'll be for managers how to execute on this and that. But really those keynote experiences train you how to think.

in many aspects. Right?

Right.

differently. So it puts it in a whole new framework where you're not giving them three easy tips or something else. You could, but really it's how does that shift their thinking? And that's to me more thought leadership versus just expertise. Thoughts on that?

Yes.

Mm hmm. Yes, and well, yes, I love that. love I know the book you're talking about. We read it together. I think it's a great, great book. What what I though am finding out in the field is that when someone hires me and they'll call the keynote, OK, they do want actionable content. I mean, typically, at least to the groups that I'm speaking to, they do want actionable content. So what I do in my my presentation is

Mm-hmm

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

is I'm weaving in the paradigm shifts with some actionable content. I'm pulling those things together.

Yep. So you're keeping them engaged. And I think that's the part is that you're not so relying on a single story or a video or some cool graphic that you've got. You've got to have all of that. But it's got to be going back to what you started with. It's got to be embedded within the structure. And the content has to be relatable because when you're in front of a thousand or five thousand people, that's a much different speech than 50 people. Fair.

Yes, yes, yes, fair. mean, not fair. Yes. And I will say this. And again, this is where I might be different. I do approach the 50 in the same way. okay. So I had a client the other day say to me, I'm doing a speech next week. It's just 17 people. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a moment.

I'd never want to hear again, there's just 17 people. There's no such thing as there's just five people, there's just 17, there's just 10,000. Every single person and every speech matters. And you've got to approach that with a high degree of reverence and excellence because those people, those 17 people are giving you something, the only currency they can ever get back.

and that's their time. So you better be good. You better show up and you better make this worth their while. So for me, I guess I don't think that way. I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying, but I would prefer our speakers to perform for 17 people with the same level of reverence, respect and intentionality and preparedness as they do for 10,000. Because if you don't do that, you're never gonna be ready for the 10,000.

their time.

Yeah, yeah.

I love it.

Well, what I hear you continue to say, this is again, why coaching is so vital, is it's, you're always shooting for the top. Whether, you you start at the top, the keynote, the audience, the connection, everything, the script, all starts here, and then it's all adaptable. Versus if you're trying to take something down here and create up, it's a much heavier lift. If, not impossible at times.

Yes.

Yes, that's exactly it. So what I will say, a keynote for 5,000 versus a group training for 50, two totally different animals. That's how I would delineate that, right? I would say like a keynote for 50 and a keynote for 5,000, right? I'm not, mean, obviously you have to, there are things you're going to tweak in that scenario, but my mindset is the same. But if I was doing, if you said, come in and coach our group and there's,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

50 of us and we've got four hours to do it and it's gonna be a lot of, you know, back and forth, that does not have to be, I yes, you wanna be prepared, but it's not gonna be as dialed in because you wanna leave room for conversation and room for things to organically kind of be co-created with the crowd. Whereas a keynote, you're not doing that. That whole thing is completely, completely dialed in.

Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.

Which quite frankly is another reason to have a coach to know these subtle differences because you aren't going to know that unless you've been on that stage and you've experienced that yourself. so having that knowledge and that background before you ever get on the stage is imperative. That's going to be make or break.

Yes.

Hmm. Yes. Yes, yes. I mean, that's what I did. And I think I'm unusual. I think a lot of people maybe don't hire coaches before. Actually, I've had a fair degree of clients now that I'm saying that. I probably have about maybe like 20 % of my clients come and they haven't really started yet. And then the rest are somewhere in from like starting doing this for a while to been doing this for quite a while, right?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

but I, I personally am biased towards like, if you know, you want to do this, like why, why would you, why would you potentially get better at being worse? Meaning like people are like, well, I'm just going to practice. Well, how do know what you're practicing is the right thing? Right. And then you're getting work, you're reinforcing habits that might not be the right one. So just like, just start, start now, start at the beginning of the journey.

Yeah.

Start, yeah, and then you don't have to unlearn the things that you've been stuck and set. It's easier to start fresh. I love that. Okay, so if we have a speaker listening now and they just feel stuck and unsure in their talk, what's one thing you would tell them to help them get them unstuck?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, let me give you a formula, because I keep talking about creating this experience, right? So let me give the formula that I created for making an experience. that be helpful? OK. So it's an acronym. It's called CEDA. So C-E-T-A. OK, so I'll run through it, and then we'll talk about how to use it. So C is you want to be conversational with your audience.

Okay.

love it. Please.

So you don't want to talk like, speaker person, right? Like turn into speaker person. You've probably seen that Mary. I know I did that back in the middle, in the beginning of my career where I felt like I had to be like this, right? It's just like this odd elevated person versus like I'm like this on the stage. How I am now is how I am on the stage, right? So being just conversational, being yourself, polished, right? Version of yourself, but you're like, you're being yourself.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

huh.

Yep.

and talk like you're talking to one person having a cup of coffee.

Hmm.

Right? mean, the best thing that can happen is every person walks out saying, wow, I felt like Mary was talking directly to me. That connection. And that's not going to happen if you're like above them speaker person. Right? So talk to them like your friends, having a cup of coffee and use the singular word you as much as possible. So instead of lumping everyone in a big group and saying things like how many of you, everybody has anyone, ladies and gentlemen, each of you.

that connection.

Don't use words like that. Raise your hand if you. Have you ever done this? How are you today? Use the word you, the singular you as much as possible. The more you use that word, the more connected they're gonna feel to you.

So give us an example.

So if you, if I wanted to know how many of the people in my audience ate a hamburger this week, what I'm likely to do is say, how many of you have eaten a hamburger? Or who's here, who here has eaten a hamburger this week? You don't want to ask it that way. Cause I've just lumped everyone into a group. So instead I would say, raise your hand if you've had a hamburger this week.

Or have you had a hamburger this week? Right, see how I'm talking to one person? So you wanna phrase your questions, your comments, as if you're just talking to one person.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And that way you're really getting that engagement that you were talking about earlier, that connection.

And you're connecting because other than someone's actual name, the word you is going to be like the next most important word in their vocabulary.

Mm-hmm, then they see themselves in your speech.

Correct, exactly. So that's the C, be conversational and don't use industry jargon. Really, if you have industry jargon in your industry, and we have a lot in financial services, you gotta, and even the words that you take for granted, trust me, a lot of them are jargon. So you wanna ask someone outside the industry to check that for you, to make sure you're not using jargon. And so if a 10 year old can't understand it, get rid of it. Get rid of it, right?

Okay.

Get rid of it, yep.

So even words like portfolio or accumulation, decumulation, you actually want to say them in a way that a 10 year old would actually say it. Okay. Okay. So there's that. So then there's, that's the C, be conversational. Then there's the E and the E is creating the experience. And this is where you want to take your content. You take your facts and your figures and you're going to weave what we call anchors throughout anchors, anchor the content in the heart, in the soul, in the mind.

Okay.

of your listener. So this is a list of anchors. I might have forgotten some stuff. There's some you want to add, but the main ones are going to be stories, analogies, activities.

Mm-hmm.

Props, videos, like those are all acronyms, right? CETA formula, that's an anchor. Those are all great anchors. So take your facts and figures and weave these anchors throughout them. That's gonna make it sticky. That's gonna make it emotionally connected. Okay? The T is getting people to think. And this is my secret weapon for engagement.

Mm-hmm.

Love it. What's the tea?

So I'll do presentations where they don't get to ask me a single question and they'll come up to me afterwards and say, that was so engaging. And they didn't ask me anything. Okay. And it's because of my tea. So the tea means get them to think. You do not want lazy listeners in your audience. You don't want to just spoon feed them everything. So there's two types of thinking questions. There's thinking questions that get them to think about their own life.

Mm-hmm.

in relationship to your content.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, so let's say I was talking about opening with a bang. That's one of the things I teach is that you want to open a presentation with a bang in a way that's gonna grab people right away, right? I might say something like, have you ever been to a presentation, listened to the first couple of words and thought, my gosh, this is gonna be so boring.

Yep.

What'd do? You probably picked up your phone. You started scrolling. You started scrolling, right? Okay, so that is asking you a question about your own personal experience as it relates to the content I'm teaching. Right, I'm getting you to think about your own life. Okay, so that's what I call a T1 thinking question. A T2 thinking question is when you take statements of fact,

Tune out. Yep. Tune out or walk out. Yep.

Yeah.

and turn them into questions. So instead of just spoon feeding people facts, you actually turn some of those facts into questions. And this is how you get a lot of engagement. So it might be something. So, okay, so here's one. How long do you think someone will give you before they decide to tune you in or tune you out?

Hmm.

10 seconds.

Okay, so then she says 10 seconds, if I'm in an audience, I'd have other people calling out 20 seconds, a minute, whatever, right? And then I'll say, yeah, if you can believe it, it's five to 30 seconds. And if it's on video, it's even shorter. It might be like four seconds. Think about yourself when you're watching videos. So I could have told you that, Mary. I could have said, it takes five to 30 seconds. But instead I turned it into a question to get engagement.

Sure.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Well, and you saw my reaction, like my natural reaction, even though in this case, I'm, I'm kind of hosting this. I'm like, well, I got to answer the question, right? Because I was so engaged with what you wanted me to say that I didn't even hesitate. It just came right out. Yes.

Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah, right, right. So that's the way I always call it. That is my secret weapon for engagement. So particularly when I'm on virtual, I love it. I get them typing in the chat the entire way through. You've probably seen me do this when I've hosted workshops with you, where I'll say something like, okay, yes or no, type it in the chat and I'll ask a question. Or how many seconds do think it takes? Five seconds, 10 seconds.

Love it.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And then I'll be like, Mary 10, oh, oh, John, you said a minute, you are a very patient person, way more than I am, right? And so I'll be engaging with them through the chat by them typing things in.

Love it.

Yeah, so that's the T. And then the A is application. Give them something tangible to change their life. I always like to give people, I always want people, because I know they're giving me something they can never get back again, their time. I always want people who leave my presentation to say, you know what, I'm so glad I spent that time with DareDraw because I can now do XYZ to make my life better, make my business better. So even if I never see them again, they never hired me again, I never work with them again, I want to know I left a mark and I made their life better.

Mm-hmm.

Does that application always come at the end?

Not necessarily, no. It could be woven in somewhere into the presentation. And this is where the art comes in. Yeah, this is where the art comes in where you're like, okay, point number one, this is where that application would be. So, yeah. Yeah, is that, okay, is that helpful? Yeah.

going back to the structure. Yeah.

my goodness. This has been so great. Thank you so much. And I think I can see now too, like for sure, like why do you need a coach? Well, because not only is it just about giving some feedback and tips and ideas, but it's systematic to the whole foundation of what you're building. And so it's so important to start. And I'll just reverberate that without that good content, without that structure, it's not.

Yeah.

You know, I think a lot of times I hear it, well, you know, so much, you do so much to get up on stage, but they don't see all the reps, all the mistakes, all the things in the back end. They just think, well, you're giving a one hour keynote speech. And what you're talking about is really the hard work that comes into play in getting up there and showing it. And nobody sees that behind the scenes. They just think, yeah, you get up there and you rattle it off. But really the best speeches have put in hundreds and hundreds of hours worth of work behind it.

Yes.

yeah. And that's how we get paid so much. Like people think, my gosh, wow, you get paid that for one hour? And it's like, no, it's not really one hour. Right? It's, it's, mm-hmm. Yes, it's the 500 hours that went into that one hour. Right?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, it's the breadth and it's the depth and it's so much that goes on. I love this.

Yes. Well, Deirdre, you've done such a good job, like setting our foundation for this speaker success toolkit. We really appreciate it. If somebody said, Hey, I really want to reach out to Deirdre, how would they connect with you?

Yeah, just go to our website, crazygoodtalks.com. And if you click on the speech coaching page and you want to have a conversation with a member of my team, you can just click on the schedule a strategy session, you know, button there and we'd to chat with you. See how we can help you.

Love it. And we'll make sure to include that link in the end notes. Well, this episode has laid the foundation of the entire speaker success talk toolkit. Thank you so much. Before you ever deliver, before video, before websites, it's worth talking and having a coach. If you want to work alongside other speakers and refine your message, practice your craft and network with other speakers, can learn more at the FBKG community.

Awesome, thank you.

financialbehaviorkeynote.com slash community. If this conversation helped you think differently about your work, subscribe to the show and share the episode. Thank you and join us for our next episode.