Command the Stage with Confidence and Charisma with Michael Davis

Ever felt your heart racing and palms sweating at the thought of speaking before an audience? Michael Davis, founder of Speaking CPR LLC, joins me to decode the world of public speaking and offers strategies to transform your fear into magnetic influence. Together, we dissect the needs of post-pandemic audiences and the crucial role of interactive elements in both virtual and in-person settings. You'll learn to navigate the nuances of audience engagement, utilizing multimedia techniques to avoid the pitfalls of waning attention spans and ensure your message leaves a lasting impact. Michael's insights and my own experiences combine to empower you with the tools to craft not just speeches, but stories that engage, influence, and inspire. Join us, and amplify your voice to carry across boardrooms, stages, and digital platforms alike.

NOTABLE QUOTES
"I want to hear more in people." – Michael
"Anxiety is natural and you’re never going to get rid of it. What I do is help people…manage the anxiety." – Michael
"As a speaker, it becomes that much harder to keep you audience captivated because they expect more from us." – Philip
"I don’t think we have an attention problem. What we have is a material and a delivery problem." – Michael
"We need to involve all three senses (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic) and keep changing it up through [the presentation]." – Michael
“As speakers, we’ve got to consider what’s the thought process in [the audience’s] minds with every part of our presentation." – Michael
"It takes confidence to stand in front of a group of people saying nothing when they haven’t [heard] a thing from you." – Michael
"As parents, when [the children] get silent, that’s when you know I got to go pay attention." – Philip
"Silence gets attention." – Michael
"Our job as presenters is to make our audience uncomfortable [because] people don’t change until they’re uncomfortable." – Michael
"When you ask questions of your audience, answer the question in your head…because now, you’re on the same wavelength [mentally] as your audience." – Michael
"You can’t get to version two until you do version one." – Michael
"Our role as speakers is to be there for the audience, but we’re not responsible to them for taking our wisdom and doing something with it." – Michael
"[The] audience’s desires, goals, and objectives [are] constantly changing and we’ve got to be in tune with that." – Michael
"Learn to trust your gut and that you have a valuable lesson based on your life experience." – Michael

RESOURCES
Michael
Website: https://speakingcpr.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldavisspeakingcpr
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpeakingCPR/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpeakingCPR 

Philip
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

Transcript

Philip Sessions: 0:15

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the speaking sessions podcast. I've got Michael Davis here. He is the founder of speaking CPR LLC. He helps professionals attract more clients, create efficient teams and increase their influence through improved Speaking skills. And today we're going to talk about all things public speaking who could have figured that? But we're going to talk about that how to get on stage and how to make yourself a better speaker For when you get those opportunities to be on stage. But before we get into the episode, michael, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Michael Davis: 0:55

First, I'm going to tell you I'm jealous of you. Have two reasons, fill it. Number one You've got an awesome speaking voice. And number two, your last name lends itself to a perfect podcast speaking sessions. What do I do with Davis? Dynamic delivery with Davis? Maybe I don't know, but anyway, thank you. It's great to be with you today. Great way to start off a holiday week. I have been. I like to tell people when I meet them in social settings that I help business professionals and speakers become more effective in presenting their ideas, be more concise, be more clear and Create that. I want to hear more in other people.

Philip Sessions: 1:36

Hmm, I like that and that's such a pivotal thing because there's really kind of to me the two sides that you can go when it comes to like Helping with speaking, coaching and everything. It's either somebody who has no experience, no knowledge there are, there's lack all this confidence, or they're already doing it some, but how can we make them a little bit better each time we go through training? And so sounds like you're on that, that second side, where you're helping them just get better, not that you can't help the beginner person, but you're really helping more of that person that already has the experience, just to get a little bit better. Is that right?

Michael Davis: 2:12

Yeah, well, we were talking before we started. I built my business working one-to-one with individuals and I helped a lot of people who had the anxiety about speaking, which leads to an important point about public speaking. There's this myth that's been perpetuated for decades that public speaking is the number one fear that we all have.

Michael Davis: 2:33

Yeah that's not true number one. We public speak all the time, but underneath that fear of standing in front of a group is a deeper fear which our ancestors have passed on to us over the millennia, and that is the fear of public humiliation. Hmm, and also combine that with another one, which is the fear of walking into a room full of strangers. What is public speaking? It's the potential to be humiliated in front of a room full of strangers. That's why we think we fear speaking, because we do it all the time for it networking events, people seen people on On the street. Whatever we're doing it, the anxiety is natural and you're never going to get rid of it. What I do is I help people with mental Exercises before they speak, even physical exercises, so that you can manage the anxiety, and I spent the first eight, nine years of my career working with a lot of people like that. Then I transitioned into more experienced speakers, whether it's professional speakers or Business professionals, who stand up in front of groups or cameras on an ongoing basis To make sure they get crystal clear messages out.

Michael Davis: 3:42

Speaking has become a lot more difficult since the pandemic and I'm not talking about because we're talking on cameras. I mean you and I are doing this just fine. I mean, it would be great to be in person, but we can do it effectively here. Audiences have changed their expectations of presentations and we were slowly drifting toward virtual Philip before the pandemic, but now, because of the involvement we had to create with people to keep them engaged, virtually Going back to in-person events, people are expecting to become part of the presentation. We've got to ask them questions, polls, breakouts, physical breakouts now, and it's changed the dynamic, which to me, makes it an exciting time to get into speaking, because the playing field got leveled back in 2020 and we all had to start over, in a sense.

Philip Sessions: 4:38

Yeah, and I agree with you there that that actually makes me think of a Good question here, because a lot of us, when we get into speaking, we think that oh, we need to get rid of the ums and the aahs and we need to just be an eloquent speaker. But it really sounds like that's almost like the bare minimum In order just to be even a speaker. But if you want to actually be an exceptional speaker, you have to go beyond just speaking, well beyond just really Communicating a good message and an effective message. You're actually having to engage your audience. Am I getting that right when you're saying all that you're?

Michael Davis: 5:16

absolutely right. This is. It's gonna sound like it's coming out of left field, but this is a an analogy that I've noticed with the importance of keeping people engaged. I'm a big NFL football fan. I live in Cincinnati, ohio.

Michael Davis: 5:30

A couple years ago, bengals went to the Super Bowl and I was watching a clip of that and there was a 60 second clip where I noticed that the camera Change occurred 11 times in 60 seconds boom, boom, boom. I mean quarterback, cheerleaders, coach fans, other coach I mean it was constant and I was curious. I went back 30 years and I watched the famous play in the NFL and it was a big fumble that somebody fumbled in the key game and they watched this player. They watch. I mean they filmed. The camera was on this player for 60 seconds with only one scene change. Hmm, 11 to 1 ratio in 30 years and if you watch any kind of TV now, you'll notice scene changes fast.

Michael Davis: 6:13

Now, what does that have to do with speaking when we're on camera? Especially, it can't be talking heads for 30 to 60 minutes or it can't be. I'm just gonna show you a bunch of slides. You gotta talk for a couple minutes. Show a slide, talk for a couple more minutes, ask a question. A couple more show, a video show, a meme show, a gift or Jeff, I can never remember which Breakout rooms polls. We have to constantly keep it going. It has become a TV production and it is look, I don't have the scientific research on this, philip it's at least three times the effort to put on an equally engaging and valuable virtual presentation. It is as it is on stage.

Philip Sessions: 6:55

So three times. So the virtual presentation is more right, is what you're saying. It's exactly, exactly, yeah, and that does make sense?

Philip Sessions: 7:02

Yeah, because we don't have that physical is 3d perspective. We look very two-dimensional on a video and everything. And you're right, and podcasts are maybe the worst and most notorious for being talking heads and Definitely is difficult when you have the video portion of that. Obviously people are listening more radio, but yeah, it is. It is crazy and we were talking about offline.

Philip Sessions: 7:24

I got thinking about tick tock or something you mentioned earlier made me think about tick tock and just how Things have changed, where everybody wants to watch a shorter and shorter video. They want to be entertained, otherwise they'll swipe up, they'll swipe left. However they're swiping, they're gonna swipe on past your video because it wasn't captivating, and it's the same thing with your story. But going back to what you talked about with the NFL team in the highlight reel, that's really interesting and I actually did a sermon at church Probably about two months ago and I brought up the statistic it was just, you know, silly statistic, but it still goes in line with this that I think a goldfish has a seven second Attention span and we, as huge the human race, are down to like five or six seconds now and, which is just crazy, that apparently a goldfish has a longer attention span than we do, and even I think it was the early 22,000 or maybe it was in the 1990s our attention span was like 13 or 14 seconds, so tremendously longer than it is now, and so as a speaker it becomes that much harder to keep your audience captivated, because they expect more from us and they also have less attention.

Philip Sessions: 8:38

So what are some things that you do to kind of help keep the attention of your audience? And maybe let's break this down into to you a Virtual and then also in person, if there are some differences there from your side there are.

Michael Davis: 8:54

I'm going to counter what you just said, though and I just put a post out about this recently we have to be very careful about these studies that are out there. I saw the goldfish report a few years ago and, okay, it's something intuitively didn't feel right, and in the last few weeks I read that that was originally reported as a study. When it turned out to be, it was 25 people who were monitored To see how fast they changed sites, and it was done in 2008. So the world was very different and it never struck me that that just didn't make sense with the goldfish thing. So here's my here's what I asked people, and I put this it's in all my presentations.

Michael Davis: 9:38

I'll ask the audience we have an attention problem today, right, and they're saying, yeah, I disagree. And here's why I disagree. Two levels have you ever seen a child In grossed in a video game? They have an attention problem. You can't get their attention. They're so engrossed. But that's children, right, we're just, we're throwing them under the bus. We adults, we would never do that. Have you ever binge watch a Show or a program Netflix, apple TV, whatever it is? Mm-hmm, you can't get people's attention. I mean, they'll hold off going to the bathroom, eating, getting a drink because they've got to watch the next one, forgetting there's a pause button. Philip, I don't think we have an attention problem. What we have is a material and a delivery problem.

Michael Davis: 10:24

We have not, as presenters, changed with the world, which has different viewing and interest habits. That's the challenge we have. We're still trying to present Talking heads, stand in front of them. I'm gonna talk at you for 30 to 60 minutes. They're not buying that. And you mentioned tiktok. They did a study a year or two ago, I and they discovered that the average TikTok viewer will give a video two and a half seconds. Now, as presenters, we have a little bit longer, maybe five and a half seconds, which means our first words, even our introductions, have got to change. It can't be about us. It's gotta be about what's the audience gonna get? Because when they're sitting there, they're constantly being called to by this, this phone, right, they constantly wanna know what's going on in the world. I got an email. I got some kind of text oh my God, what's Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey doing today? Right, it's constantly there. It's an addiction. So we cannot come out and sound like every other speaker, meaning we can't start with thank you, it's great to be here today, what great weather. We just ate up our five and a half seconds. They're already checking out on us. Gotta do something different. And to your point, yeah, it is different, virtually, because it has to change more quickly. I'm not saying every two and a half seconds, every three to five minutes. You've gotta change it up In person.

Michael Davis: 11:56

I'm asking more questions than I ever used to in a keynote. Just a quick check-in hey, have you ever been in that kind of situation? I might be telling a story. There's one I opened with about sitting in my boss's office back when I was a financial advisor and he basically said in a nutshell you're a lousy speaker, your stories suck and you got 60 days to turn this around and we're gonna fire you. Five years ago, when I told that story, I would just go right under the next part. Now I stop and I say have you ever been in a meeting like that, where your job was on the line? Well, I think virtually everybody has. But I'm just getting them engaged. We have to do check-ins like that. We have to ask those questions, get them doing something which each of their senses Not a big fan of slides, but people are visual.

Michael Davis: 12:47

We've gotta have slides. Don't make them read slides. Put images, one or two words, obviously the auditory part. You're talking. They're gonna hear that. Get them kinesthetically involved. Have them writing. Whether it's on paper or on their devices doesn't matter, but we need to involve all three senses and keep changing it up all the way through.

Philip Sessions: 13:06

You're right that we do need to change it up, and it is crazy that within two and a half seconds like you said with the TikTok video that they're gone, they're moving on to the next thing. And you're right, when you're in person, it's very easy that somebody will just sit there, but they'll get on their phone, but at least they're sitting there. If you're in virtual, people may just turn off their screen or their camera and all of a sudden you have their face, so that's their picture of their profile, but they're no longer there anymore, and so we do have to work to keep that attention. And I think these are great things that you started with. I want us to dive more into this because this is such an important thing. But you also mentioned about the, you know, saying thank you for having me here and everything. The other classic one that I cringe when people say it is morning and then it's like morning and especially when they follow up with I said morning and it's like really.

Philip Sessions: 14:04

Are we kindergartners Like come on.

Michael Davis: 14:07

Oh, I hate that yeah.

Philip Sessions: 14:10

That one makes me cringe, and you're not going to lose an audience more than that, cause they're like, okay, this guy or this girl, they definitely don't know what they're doing, they're just up there trying to milk the time. I have no clue how to make us excited or engaged or anything, so let's go.

Michael Davis: 14:28

They think they're being clever, it's no you're not, it's a gimmick and I'm two and a half seconds I'm checking out.

Philip Sessions: 14:36

Yep, exactly, yeah, it's like oh, another speaker like this, like I'm done with that, so let's start.

Michael Davis: 14:42

If you're listening to this podcast, listen to what Philip just said. It sounds like a throwaway line. Almost that's exactly what they're thinking. Yeah. And what we, as speakers, must do is we've got to consider what's the thought process in their minds with every part of our presentation, and I promise you what you just said, philip that is exactly what they're doing in their thinking. Where's my phone?

Philip Sessions: 15:04

Yeah, Easy way. They may not get up physically, but in their mind they have already gotten up and left.

Philip Sessions: 15:09

And that's by getting on their phone and everything. So the opener of a speech is such an important thing. Obviously, like what we're talking about here, you're capturing their attention within the first two to five seconds. Wherever we want to say, that number truly is. It's up for speculation there, but we know it's within a very short window of time. So what are some things that you do to help capture the audience's attention right away, to let them know as well not just because we could just say some stupid joke, that or maybe it's really funny joke but has nothing to do with our message. So how do we make sure that we capture their attention and also let them know, like, hey, this is what we're gonna talk about today and what are some things that you do from your professional experience?

Michael Davis: 15:54

Yeah, there are four ways I like to do it. First of all, let's go back to what is the audience thinking in those few seconds before you start to speak. What do you think they're thinking?

Philip Sessions: 16:05

Oh man, this guy's not dressed very well, not that good looking. Is he huffing and puffing as he goes up on stage? No, just kidding. Yeah, they're probably thinking well, what's in it for me? What are they gonna talk about? How is this person gonna help me? Oh man, I probably could go to the restroom. I should have went, like there are a lot of things that aren't there.

Michael Davis: 16:26

You're going a lot. Yeah, I say expand it beyond us as speakers. And I always tell my speaker clients okay, let's not be so egocentric. They may be thinking about you, but guess what else they may be thinking. Oh my gosh, it's tonight the night I gotta get the kids to practice. Oh my God, is it this weekend? My Johnson, you're coming. Oh my gosh. Oh, christmas is coming up in a week. Oh, I'm not ready. This is all that's going through their heads.

Michael Davis: 16:49

And if we don't break that thought pattern, meaning we come out and we say what you said before morning or thank you, they're right back into those thoughts because they've already told themselves subconsciously oh, my camera just did that, I don't know. Subconsciously they're checking out. So here are four ways I like to combine with a bonus fifth. Number one is jump right into a story. Number two is a startling statement. Like I might come out and say if I'm doing a presentation about public speaking, I could come out and say did you know that public speaking is not the number one fear? Well, most people I say startling because they've been conditioned to think that's what it is.

Philip Sessions: 17:31

So I've already got their attention.

Michael Davis: 17:32

What is Number three? Ask a question what is the most powerful communication device we have today that might be used for storytelling? Just something to get them thinking along to my topic. And fourth is just a quote Warren Buffett, legendary investor, said if you want to increase your value in the marketplace by more than 50%, master this one skill. I'm going to public speaking so I can do one of those four, and it has to orient the audience toward the topic. That really starts before that with your introduction. How do most introductions sound that you've heard, philip. What do they talk about?

Philip Sessions: 18:13

Yeah, about the speaker, about how great they are, the accomplishments they've had, just a bunch of stuff and depending. That's. One thing I liked about your bio is because for the audience I have every guest send me their bio and the cool thing about yours was it was like I think it was literally two sentences, maybe three, but it was very short. I have some people that send me their bio and it is like six paragraphs and I have to go and chunk that down. I'm like what do I take out here? I don't know what's that important to them and I try and piece it together to make some kind of sense. But the MC will sit there and talk about the speaker and they may go on for a long time. The da, da, da, da, da da. All right, you lost me after four sentences about how apparently amazing this speaker is and all these great accomplishments they've done Me. What about me? I'm here to learn, I'm here for something that's not telling me what I'm here for. This makes it seem like I should be here for that speaker.

Michael Davis: 19:16

Exactly. One of my good speaker friends, ed Tate, says here's what's going on in the audience's mind right Before you speak. So what, who cares what's in it? For me, and that's why the introduction has to first. Words have to be about, maybe asking. You can start your introduction the way I suggested you start your speech. You can have the MC read off a question that's gonna orient them to the topic, or a startling statement, a quote. You don't wanna do a story, but pick one of those three and then orient it to. Here's what you're going to get. I call it the big promise. That person sitting there in my introduction is told you're going to walk away from this with a proven framework that you can use immediately in your next presentation. Now they're thinking okay, that sounds good. I might listen to this. I'll keep my phone in my peripheral vision, but it's not in front of me anymore. Every part of the presentation has to do that, so that you've been introduced. Now the introduction should give a line or two about your credibility. That's it.

Michael Davis: 20:22

Michael has studied storytelling and speaking for 25 years. He's written seven books on the topic. Here he is. I mean, let's get to it and then I'll jump into my opening. Now I mentioned those four. There's a fifth that I love to combine with any one of the four I use, and it's this Silence.

Michael Davis: 20:43

We live in such a distracted world with so much noise all the time, and if you're listening to this and I'll tell you, philip, the first time you do it, you're going to get nauseous because you're going to think there's no way I'm keeping their attention. But I'm going to encourage you to get up in front of the audience and for several seconds, to stand there and smile, look out at different people and you'll know if you do this enough, you will know when you've got all their attention and then jump into it. Now do not try to go in for five, seven, ten seconds the first time. It'll throw you, it'll mess with your mind Going. And just try it for one second, a little comfortable with that. Then push your comfort level, try it for two and eventually you'll be able to stand in front for the longest time.

Michael Davis: 21:33

Now here's what happened. You get introduced, you walk in front of a group. You're smiling and you're saying nothing. And there are some people in the audience who are on their phones they do. They're sitting there and they're tapping away and all of a sudden they notice there's nothing happening. And they look up and there's just this guy or this woman up there smiling, saying nothing. What's that all about? But then they look back at their phone and then, all of a sudden, it's like what's this person's deal? The phone goes down. And that's what I want. I want your attention.

Michael Davis: 22:10

It also, subliminally, it gives the feeling that you're confident. It takes confidence to stand in front of a group of people saying nothing when they haven't heard a thing from you. You can do it later, because you've built a rapport with them, but at first like wow, what's this person's deal? It's commanding the stage from the very first. I typically don't do that virtually, though, and here's why Because we all have glitches and it's like, oh my God, his camera froze. So it doesn't work virtually, because people start going down a whole new mental path. It's like, oh my gosh, we've got technology issues. So don't try this virtually. Try it in front of an audience and watch how you command the room.

Philip Sessions: 22:56

Yeah, definitely don't try that virtually, because, especially if somebody's got it on speaker view, then you don't actually come into view. It's like, okay, what's going on, yeah, and Michael just leave. But that is a great tip and I can't help but think about it with my daughter being two years old, when she gets silent, that's when I know what's going on. Something's happening right now that she doesn't want us to know about. So I better go pay, you know, go look and see what's going on. So pay even more attention to her than just as she alive. Okay, you know, there's there.

Philip Sessions: 23:28

We're all parents, we do that. There's times that we just we need to get some stuff done. There's kind of their playing, yeah. When they get silent, that's when you know I gotta go pay attention. And so the same thing there, like you said with the speaking, that what's going on why? Why is he quiet, why is she quiet? And so you're having that silence at the beginning. I like that. I've never really thought about that, but yeah, that would be a very captivating way to get everybody's attention.

Michael Davis: 23:54

Well, start using that metaphor when you're coaching others. Talk to them about the silence and use your daughter as a perfect example. I hadn't thought about it that way, because my son's 28. You know, I do have an eight month old granddaughter now. She's not silent, but when she's holding up to be in another room, it would be like silence got your attention, which, if you think it on the surface, it's an oxymoron. Silence gets attention. It absolutely gets attention.

Philip Sessions: 24:19

Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.

Michael Davis: 24:21

Because we're not comfortable. And if you're, if you try this, I promise you, this is what's going to happen in your brain You're going to start hearing a little voice. It's just oh my gosh, you got to say something, you're going to lose them. You're going to lose their attention. You got to say something. You got to ignore that voice, because it's just the opposite. They're getting curious, they're intrigued. You've broken their pattern of having noise all the time.

Philip Sessions: 24:46

Yeah, I don't know. Same thing, a similar situation when I'm in the car listening to podcasts. This probably happened to everybody, as you were silent. But when a pause happens in a podcast, I look and like what happened? I would start want to look at my phone Did it get paused somehow? Like what's going on? And then they just start talking again. Oh yeah, it makes me.

Philip Sessions: 25:06

I'm already kind of paying attention, but obviously I'm driving so I'm more focused on that. But then I'm like, wait, what happened to the podcast? And so, yeah, it's just another example of why having a pause can be very powerful to capture that attention, especially at the beginning. But as you go throughout the speech as well which I want to get your standpoint on the power of a pause, since we're kind of talking about pause and silence, all of that the power of a pause in the middle of the speech, because that's also very uncomfortable, I would say maybe a little bit less because, like you said, you built up that rapport with your audience. So if you do happen to take a pause or you're going to pause to take a sip of water or whatever, they may not look at it as much, but there's still a lot of power in a pause, so let's dive into that a little bit.

Michael Davis: 25:52

Yeah, absolutely, and in one part I do want to make to come across like an old guy here. I think this is a generational issue, because how old are you, phillip?

Philip Sessions: 26:01

I'm 32.

Michael Davis: 26:02

All right, you're there. Okay, your generation was raised on devices from day one.

Michael Davis: 26:07

Pretty much generationally speaking, you're accustomed to all this noise when you're speaking to a younger audience. I'm 60 because of my peers we remember when it was less noise you got to think about your audience. You're really going to grab a younger audience and they're going to get uncomfortable. Now it's okay to make your audience uncomfortable, by the way. In fact, our job as presenters is to make our audience uncomfortable, because why do we speak Unless we're there to entertain, which is a rare few? Unless we're there to entertain, we're there to help them create some kind of change in our lives. People don't change until they're uncomfortable. So that is our job to do that. But to get back to your question about pausing if you make a really good point that you want people to consider, if you ask a question, you got to stop talking long enough for them to consider the point. Otherwise you're just talking to hear yourself talk.

Michael Davis: 27:08

Here's an example I often use. I'm going to use two different versions. First is who is your favorite teacher in high school? Mine was Mrs Gravely. Why did you like that teacher? Well, I like Mrs Gravely because she just made us think we were scared to go in there unprepared, but she taught me so much about English. When you think about your favorite teacher, don't you have a good feeling. I know I do Right. You see what I just did.

Philip Sessions: 27:37

Yeah, I could even say yeah in time when you started talking again.

Michael Davis: 27:41

Listen to speakers who did it. Now let's try version B. Who is your favorite teacher in high school? Mr Loudon, Mine was Mrs Gravely. What was it that you liked about your favorite teacher?

Philip Sessions: 27:54

He was always just fun and charismatic and you could always go to him for help.

Michael Davis: 27:58

When you think about your favorite teacher today, what really comes to mind?

Philip Sessions: 28:03

That he liked to play chess.

Michael Davis: 28:05

There you go. See how that's the different Now I wouldn't expect in an audience, although some people will answer out loud. Here's a tip for you on how to do this when you ask questions of your audience, answer the question in your own head, along with them. Now, I know that may sound a little strange. It's like, well, I know the answer. That's okay. It's okay to know the answer. Maybe sometimes you'll change it up too, but just answer it, because now you're, mentally, you're on the same wavelength as your audience. If you do this enough, you'll start to be able to read their faces and know when they've answered it.

Philip Sessions: 28:42

I like that. That makes a lot of sense with the pause, I not just pause. And one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, move on.

Michael Davis: 28:49

Yeah, I was going to say don't count, Actually answer that question in your head too.

Philip Sessions: 28:54

Yeah, that way there's actually enough time instead of your guesstimating the amount of time it would take to answer a question.

Michael Davis: 29:00

Yeah. So when you ask questions, see that when you make an important point, public speaking can increase your business. I'm going to make a statement slash question here. I might be talking to a group of salespeople and say, if you can increase your business by 50% next year, how would that impact? Think about the impact on your lifestyle. So in my head I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to get that car and wanted to start going on vacation. I'm not going to be saying this out loud, but this is what's going on in my head. And once I'm getting kind of jazzed about, okay, I'm going to feel like, yeah, 50% increase would be awesome. I'm right there, in sync with them. Again, it takes practice and the first few times you do it, you're not going to do it. Well, that's okay. That's all I should tell my clients. You can't get to version two until you do version one. You just got to keep trying. And then the third time you've got to pause is when you say something funny.

Philip Sessions: 29:58

Yeah, I've seen that so many times and I'm guilty of that sometimes too where I'll say a joke and I didn't think it was going to be funny and didn't plan for it, and it's going to be funny and then all of a sudden people are laughing and I've already started going on and I think that's a hard part, where it's something I didn't think would necessarily be funny which ended up being funny, that I don't allow the audience time to laugh.

Michael Davis: 30:19

And if we don't, we do that twice. We just conditioned them don't laugh. Now there are many reasons for this next suggestion, but the whole laughter and really knowing when the audience laughs is this is why it's critical that you record yourself. Record yourself and obviously you want to listen back, but one of the ways to listen to your recording is to try to ignore you and listen to the audience. Listen to where they laugh, listen for the hmm, ooh, you're going to get those, but in the moment, a lot of times you miss them.

Michael Davis: 30:53

I know it sounds like there's no way I'd miss it. Trust me, you do. I've gone back and listened to recordings. It's like, oh, I didn't remember them laughing at that, because if you become aware of all of those, then you'll know for the next time you give this presentation. I need to shut up and let them laugh, or I need to strengthen that pause so that they can think about the question I just asked because I heard people say, hmm, they're giving you feedback, but you've got to capture it so you can listen to it when you're not in speaker mindset.

Philip Sessions: 31:26

That's a great tip right there. That's one I've actually not ever thought about is listening back for the audience. Of course, I've thought about for myself like how can I get better, what did I do right, and everything which kind of goes to this almost whole theme of not focusing on yourself here, as we talked about throughout this podcast and everything, but really focusing in on how the audience is reacting, because we all do that. We're guilty of that. Whether we show it on our face, obviously with a video of you on stage, you're not going to see the audience's face, but we can also look at that feedback as we're speaking.

Philip Sessions: 32:03

How is there facial mannerisms? They may be sitting there, but it kind of gives us like, look, like disgusted look. They may not say it out loud, but you can tell they're disgusted by that or they're turned off by something you say. There are things that you can pick up, hopefully, while you're there speaking, so you can correct some of that. Obviously, afterwards you can't, but you can pick up them making these noises later on. That maybe you didn't notice, which is a really great point I never thought about.

Michael Davis: 32:35

Now, I think the sounds they make and that includes silence, by the way, when you listen to the recordings, listen for the absolute drop dead silent moments. That's when you've got their full attention. I'm careful about reading faces, and I'm not the only one to say that. In fact, every speaker I know Phillip, who's been around for a while has a story like this, where he's giving a presentation and the audience is sitting up their arms crossed, look, look on their face, and they're just not saying much. You're thinking, oh my God, they hate me. This is terrible. Why am I here? All these thoughts go through your head. When it's over, they'll come up to you and say that was the best speech I've ever heard. We're just not real demonstrative around here.

Michael Davis: 33:21

Every speaker I know has a story like that, at least one. We got to be careful about reading their faces because we don't know what's going on in their minds. We've just told a story that reminded them of someone from their past, let's say, just a bad relationship. Well, they're not mad at you, they're just thinking about that for a moment, or it could be a happy moment. They could have walked in with little sleep. You've got a two-year-old. You know what that's like on those days when she didn't sleep well when she was an infant. They may not be there mentally because they're exhausted. We've got to be careful how we read that language. Or somebody gets up in the middle of your presentation. Don't take it personally. Maybe they've got to take an important phone call, they've got to go to the bathroom, we can't know. That's why having the audio of that is so powerful, because that's where you're going to hear a lot of what they really thought.

Philip Sessions: 34:13

Yeah, that's a great point as well. I've definitely seen that for myself. I'm like, man, am I reaching the audience? Am I getting through to them? Then afterwards, wow, that was a great message. I really got so much out of it. I enjoyed it. I'm like meanwhile, yeah, you were just sitting there. I just look at her like this, just hand on your face, bored looking. I was like but yeah, you loved it. I'm confused. You're all right, look at it, but don't take everything as a 100% fact for sure of what they're saying. Face value is what I was looking for there.

Michael Davis: 34:49

I guess your bored. Look, I would say that's probably a pretty good tell that that person's not in.

Philip Sessions: 34:54

Yeah, I would say 99 times out of 100, for sure.

Michael Davis: 34:58

Yeah, but we just have to be careful about making assumptions, because all we can do our role as speakers is to be there for the audience, but we're not responsible to them for taking our wisdom and doing something with it. That's on them. Give them your best. Look, sometimes it's just not going to be the right audience for you. It happens it's like a bad first date. They go on to the next one.

Philip Sessions: 35:24

Yeah, very true, speaking of audiences, because I've seen some people that are trying to get on the speaking stage and they seem to just take any speaking event that they can. I'm curious to know your thoughts on how you feel about just taking any event, or if you should or shouldn't. Let's dive into that a little bit. Could you just take any speaking event possible that you're giving the opportunity to go speak on that stage?

Michael Davis: 35:54

I'm going to give you a big old depends on that. There are so many conflicting pieces of advice on this, phillip, but I'm going to go back to one of the founding members of the National Speakers Association, and he changed the game for professional speakers. The name is Bill Gove. Bill said if you want to be a $10,000 speaker, you've got to build up to where you're worth $10,000. You don't want to go to a company and, having never given a speech before, and say pay me $10,000. It doesn't work that way. Go give lots of free. I don't like to use the word free, by the way. I always like to say fee waived or fee reduced, because you are providing value. Go give those at Kiwanis clubs, at chamber events, groups that don't pay a fee, because what this is, it's putting you in front of human beings where you can practice and you can get feedback. You can barter with them and say, okay, I'm willing to do this and I'll waive my fee. If you're listening to this, please don't ever again say you're giving a free speech, because it creates a negative connotation. It's like, well, free, and I hate cliches, but I'm going to say you get what you pay for. That's what they're thinking You're giving value, I'm going to waive my fee In return. I would like to get feedback from your audience.

Michael Davis: 37:12

You can ask all kinds of questions. Don't just say was it good? You're going to ask them like three different questions. Number one what was my point? Number two what did you like? What resonated with you? Number three what was confusing? Ask three questions like that. Hand out a sheet and ask them to turn that into you. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to start for the ones who do it. Not everyone will. If you start seeing a consistency to the question what was my message then you know you're on the right track. They're getting. If you got answers all over the place you weren't clear. They're not walking away with clear message. Number two is what did you like? What resonated? Again, look for consistent answers.

Michael Davis: 37:55

If we don't ask that question and we've got a really good story or point but we don't know it, we'll stop using it, we'll get bored. Well, I don't know, nobody's responding to it anyway, so I'm going to just throw it out. So we've got to know what works. And then, obviously, we want to know what was confusing, what didn't work, what didn't land the challenge that you and I, phillip, have, and if you're listening to this, we're all burdened by the curse of knowledge, which means we know our topic so well that we're convinced we know what the most important part is. And then when we go get audience feedback, often it will say, like, oh, that part that I thought was important wasn't even on their radar. We have to be open minded enough to say, okay, I'm gonna listen to the audience, that's what they want, that's what they need because they're constantly gonna change Audience desires and goals and objectives constantly changing and we've got to be in tune with that. But that's where I would start go to places and offer to give a fee wave presentation in return for some feedback and you just start building that way.

Michael Davis: 39:00

And where I made a huge mistake early on is I was constantly cold calling, trying to reach people. Go to your network of people right now. Go to your business professional network and say I've got this presentation. What group are you part of where I could go and speak? Could you introduce me to the organizer and start with those that don't pay?

Michael Davis: 39:18

I mean, if they offer to pay, take it, but right now you're trying to get your message down tight and then, once you do that, you can start looking and I suggest professional associations at a state level. So, for example, certified public accounts of Ohio, where I live, or maybe it is a nursing association of Kentucky, whatever it is. Go to state associations because they may pay you for a speech but, more importantly, if you do well there They'll refer you to other associations and ultimately you want to get referred up to the National Association. And they do pay well, but it's like any other skill. You got to earn the right to get in front of them and that's why you go do the no paid events. You can get crystal clear on that message.

Philip Sessions: 40:09

Yeah, that's some great advice there. Yeah, definitely, getting feedback is so important, and so doing those fee waived speeches is going to be a great way for you to do that, as well as even just if you decide to create your own little stage and bring people in, but ask for that feedback so you can continue to get better. And double down on the stories, like you said, that are actually hitting is, sometimes we think, oh, people weren't really, they weren't showing expression in their face or they weren't giving us, yeah, oh, my, any kind of verbal recognition that that was a very thought provoking story or point that you made, but in the feedback, they may give that to you. And again, yeah, not everybody's going to share that with you, but hopefully you'll get enough people to share it, which, if nobody shares it, then that probably means that your speech wasn't good at all or you didn't make them feel comfortable for some reason, and so they don't feel comfortable sharing any feedback with you, which is another telling sign as well.

Michael Davis: 41:09

That's a really good point. No, feedback is still feedback. Yeah, I want to mention this to you too, because there has been a proliferation in recent years of online offers from people who, if you pay me five or ten thousand dollars, I will get you on X number of stages a year and you'll make ten, twenty thousand dollars a speech. Don't do it. I'm just flat on telling you don't do it. I know too many people who have fallen into those things and they know how to sell it, but in the end, I haven't seen one yet. Yeah, but there is no shortcut to this. I was perfectly yesterday. We live in a culture that wants to shortcut everything. Give me a pill so I can have six pack abs. I don't want to do the workouts, but I want to have the body. Look, it doesn't work that way. And speaking especially. You've got to get out and speak and you've got to have bad events to get bruised up a little bit. So you learn from it. One of the most. This is probably the worst experience I had.

Michael Davis: 42:12

I was up in Toronto, canada. I was in front of 450 people and it was actually a speech competition and if I had won that speech competition, I would have been in the finals of the world championship of public speaking. At the time I was an incredibly insecure person and I got to this level by just having a really good story. That took me to a certain, took me deep enough into the contest that I got there. Well, my insecurities kicked in and I started listening to everyone, every single person.

Michael Davis: 42:43

By the time I got on stage, philip, I had no idea what my speech was and I about two and a half minutes in my mind went totally blank. 450 people are staring at me and I don't know what I'm supposed to say and everything in me is screaming get off stage, get off stage. But I didn't. I just started making things up. I don't know what I said to this day. It was terrible because I put six months of hard work in and to go and just flame out like that was humiliating. Best thing that could have happened to me, because I learned be very careful who you take feedback from. Well meaning people will offer you feedback and you have to develop enough confidence in yourself to trust your voice. To say that doesn't work for me. How do you get there? Repetition in front of low paying or no paying audiences, where you can get gauge audience feedback. That's the only way to do it.

Philip Sessions: 43:42

I appreciate that truth there, because we see too many people on social media that, oh yeah, I can get you paid $10,000 of speaking engagement or oh, I don't take anything less than $20,000. I don't think there's a lot of speakers out there that are really making that kind of money on a speech, and if they are, they've been doing it for quite a while and yet they'll act like, oh yeah, I just started last year. I don't think so. I mean, you maybe, maybe depend on your background, but not a lot of people are at that level.

Michael Davis: 44:14

Well, let me tell you there are several who make that kind of money for speech. Now, here's the thing in general, they've been working and crafting and honing the topic for a while. There are some people in certain industries who get hot, or there are celebrities, and the celebrities purpose is not to give a great speech, it's to put butts at seats, that's why they're there.

Michael Davis: 44:41

I'm speaking at an event next month and there's a Hall of Fame quarterback who's going to be there. Hence I don't know specifically what is getting paid, but I looked at his range and I know it's close to six figures. He's there to get people at the event. The rest of us are there to speak, to give the value, and that's fine. That's how it works. But, yeah, there are people who will get paid a large check and are not very good presenters.

Philip Sessions: 45:07

Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, it's a thing. Are you giving the value or are you putting butts in seats? If you can do both, then you get paid even more.

Philip Sessions: 45:17

It's exactly right it depends on where you're at. I mean, sales obviously gets paid more, so that quarterback is probably getting paid more than a lot of the professional speakers because they're selling seats, which is such an important thing. So if you can get yourself to that point where you are a speaker that brings value and also has a great following, that's an important thing for you to become that speaker. It's paid very well for speaking at one single event.

Michael Davis: 45:48

If you're watching this and you want to go into the professional speaking world, you have to turn off that part of you that just says I love to speak, because event planners don't care that you love to speak. What they care about is what value you're going to bring to my organization and are you easy to work with. Yeah, I can't tell you the number of speakers. I was having dinner with a friend last night. She's an event planner. She was telling me about this guy. It was unbelievable the way he wanted to be introduced. It was just. She said I'm never having back again I don't work with. Provide real value for them, not just. It's not just about the audience. By the way, the person writing the check is who you have to appeal to, because you've got to provide benefit for them. Yeah.

Michael Davis: 46:28

You got to know what it is they expect from your presentation and you can be very well paid as a professional, and it's well earned because you're giving them transformative value, meaning if you can show them how to transform their lives with their organization, they will pay you.

Michael Davis: 46:44

Yeah, five figure, five figure speaking is is the norm for people who are in professional speaking. In fact, one of my hall of fame speaker friends said if you don't charge 10,000 to these organizations they don't take it seriously. But you don't just roll out of bed one day having given a few toast master speeches and say I'm going to go charge them 10. No, it's a work that way. You've got to earn the right and you do that through putting in the reps to figure out what's the message, what works, what doesn't, and just fine tuning it that way.

Philip Sessions: 47:15

Yeah, you're exactly right. You're exactly right. So, michael man, this has been awesome. I appreciate this. I want to get to our last question here, which is if you could only share one message for the rest of your life, what would that message be?

Michael Davis: 47:28

Learn to trust your gut and that you have a valuable lesson based on your life experience. You've got it. Don't need more information. Just take what you've learned. I'm not saying don't be a student, but you've got enough in you. Whatever your topic is, that it will provide value to a large number of people. Look, there are 8 billion people on the planet and we've got technology. You don't need many people to build a good speaking business if that's what you want to do, because there will always be an audience for your topic. So trust that you have value. Be very careful about who you get feedback from. Ask for it, but then take all the feedback you get, run it through your filter because you know what you provide, and go from there. Trust yourself. You got that and just keep getting out there and doing it.

Philip Sessions: 48:17

I like that because too many of us think that our message isn't that great, our story isn't great enough to be able to share with others, but it is because you do have an audience out there that needs that message. So, michael, people want to connect with you. Where's the best place for them to connect with you?

Michael Davis: 48:34

You can connect with me, mike, at speakingcprcom. I've got a resource called 52 storytelling insights. It's complimentary and you're not going to get spammed. It's a weekly five minute audio lesson that just builds one storytelling skill on compiling another, so I can get you registered for that, if you just want to get on my website at speakingcprcom, nice.

Philip Sessions: 48:56

Well, michael, thanks again for coming on the show, sharing all this tremendous value, especially unveiling some of the speaker secrets out there of getting on stage, what that looks like and some great tips around speaking. And for those of you that are listening, make sure you go back and listen to that. Give us a follow and share this message, because there's more people that need to hear about the truth of speaking in order to get their message out.