5 - Know Your Material and Meet Speaker Rev. Talley

Successful speakers that get invited back by the meeting planners make it a point to know their material before they utter their first word on the stage. You have no idea what may occur at the event that could affect your presentation. The client might reduce or extend your time in front of the audience or equipment malfunctions could occur. Knowing your material well will help you "roll with the punches" or react to whatever happens.

In this episode you're going to learn from a great speaker and a friend of mine, Reverand Clyde Talley. Rev. Talley is an award-winning speaker, an ordained minister and a 20 year member of Toastmasters International. Because there is so much to learn from hearing the stories of how other speakers got their start, I've asked him to tell us how he got started speaking with passion, along with offering tips for new speakers. He is a big believer in encouraging speakers to know their material.

Thanks again for listening to this episode of THE GET PAID TO SPEAK PODCAST with me, Bill Corbett. I've got more great eposides coming up, so be sure and hit the button to subscribe or follow. And if you're interested in checking out my book FROM THE SOAPBOX TO THE STAGE, check out the website START A SPEAKING BUSINESS.COM to watch my book trailer video. This recording is the property of Bill Corbett and the GET PAID TO SPEAK PODCAST, copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

For more help with professional speaking, get the book FROM THE SOAPBOX TO THE STAGE, available on Amazon. Copyright 2025  Bill Corbett and The Get Paid To Speak Podcast. All Rights Reserved.

Transcript

0:04

I am Bill Corbett, professional speaker and author of the bestselling book From the soapbox to the stage, how to Use Your Passion to start a speaking business. Successful speakers that get invited back by the meeting planners make it a point to know their material before they utter their first word. On the stage you have to because you have no idea what may occur at that event that could affect your presentation. First of all, the client might reduce or extend your time in front of the audience or equipment malfunctions could occur. Knowing your material will really help you react to whatever happens. In this episode, you're going to learn from a great speaker and a friend of mine, Reverend Clyde Talley. Reverend Talley is an award-winning speaker, an ordained minister, and a 20 year member of Toastmasters International. Because there is so much to learn from hearing the stories of how other speakers got their start, I've asked him to tell us how he got started In speaking with passion, along with offering tips for new speakers, he's a big believer in encouraging speakers to know their material. Clyde Talley holds a master's degree in management and is also an ordained minister. In addition to being a pastor with his own church, Reverend Talley holds the highest speaking designation awarded by Toastmasters International, the DTM or Distinguished Toastmaster, and is a past Toastmasters district. Governor, thanks for coming out, Clyde. Thank you, bill. It's great to have you here. You have a lot of experience as a speaker. We go back. Way back. I really wanted you to come out because when I started speaking, you really inspired me and I wrote about that in my book. Why do You Speak? I like to inspire people and that's the thing that turns me on. When you see the light bulb turn on and they get it and they're now inspired and they're enthusiastic and they're excited about what they want to talk about, that's what excites me. That's why I do it. And you're right, because there's nothing, I don't think there's anything that comes quite close to when you're speaking and you can see the emotion in their face and they're listening to you, and especially if you can get them to tears or laughter or better yet, when they come up to you afterwards and they want more, more of you and what you've left with them. Tell us a little bit about your speaking career. Well, as you said, I've been speaking for over 25 years. I had my own speaking series, inspired Excellence where I talk about motivation, self-esteem, having a passion about what you do and also career coaching. So I did that for a long time. I'm still a seven habits facilitator for the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I'm also a financial coach where I teach people workshops in financial counseling, budgeting, getting out of debt, and also staying out of debt. So I still do those type things as well. Tell us about your first speaking experience. First speaking experience was interesting because in Toastmasters, your very first speech when you talk about yourself, I said, okay, what am I going to say about myself and do they really want to listen to me? So you're sitting there and you're waiting your turn and you're trying to think about, okay, so I want to make sure I covered this, this and your thing. All these things are going through your mind. When I finally got up there, what was interesting was once I got going and I started talking, it started to flow and I said, I like this. This is nice. And then the warm reception and the comfortable atmosphere just encouraged me to want to keep going. What about your first paid gig? My first paid gig was actually out of Toastmasters. I did a workshop at one of their conferences. People started handing me their car saying, oh, I would love for you to come see us, and I'd like for you to come to my company and do the same thing. The very first paid speaking gig was at State Farm, and they'd had me do a workshop which talked about motivation and motivating the employees, making sure that they stay motivated and if they're demotivated, how to get them motivated. Our first opportunity to speak together, our first paid job, that wasn't your first one. They probably was. My first one. So I'll just have to share with the viewers. Clyde and I go back. I think our first job, our first paid job was for what, 50 bucks. We had to split $50, and it was a company that hired us to come out. I actually secured the deal. I wrote about it in my book, and I went to find you because I'm going, I'm not going out there alone. So I agreed to split the 50 bucks with you, and we drove to Boston and we did a motivational inspirational talk for a retail chain, and they had all their managers on an offsite, and that was my first experience, a paid job. You've been speaking a long time. So what do you do now with your speaking? What I do now, I still do the seven habits of highly effective people, and I still do the financial counseling. I'm still doing that, and I also still mentor, believe it or not, I still mentor people who want to speak, who want to get out there and say, look, I want to do what you do. How did you get started and can you help me? So that's a side thing of mine where I always have a passion to see other people exceed and excel. So I still do that. And of course preaching because I'm a preacher, so I do that every week, man. I don't speak that often. Boy, I wish I did. What a great opportunity. Plus you have a audience who's familiar with you, you're familiar with them, and you can inspire them even more. I have to imagine being a pastor that you put so much effort in your spirit and energy into developing what you're going to say, and you must put a lot of time into that. But to get up there and inspire your audience just must be terrific, right? It is. It is. It's still that excitement of seeing the light bulbs turn on, that they get it and they understand it, and you still have some people who are still trying to grasp the concept of what you're saying. You still have to use the elements of good speaking skills even when you preach, because you have to have a clear message. You have to make sure that you have a passion about what you're talking about and what you're talking about in your book, soapbox to the stage. And also you got to make sure that you know your material. You've been speaking for 25 years. What are you going to do when you grow up? What are you going to do with your speaking when you grow up? What are your plans with your speaking profession? Well, I'm a lifelong learner, so I never get to the point where I can say, I've achieved, I've made it. That's great. Because that's when you stop learning. So. I always look at myself as ever learning, ever increasing, always looking to get better, and there's a saying of mine, you're used to this because we go back away. Good, better, best, never let rest till good becomes better and better becomes the best. Awesome. Great. Now you're working on a book, right? Tell us about the book you're working on. Well, the book that I'm working on talks about the family and it talks about what is the structure of the family to make sure that you balance work and you balance family, because some people have a lot of conflict between, okay, I'm working to pay the bills to take care of the family, but I don't want to neglect my family, but I don't want to spend too much time with my family where I'm not being able to work and make the money to pay the bills. And it's like, well, how do you balance the two and how do you come into a balance where it's a nice synchronized way of dealing with the work, the family, but it's synchronized to the point where everything is balanced, where work gets enough time, family gets enough time, especially if you're married and you have children, you definitely got to spend time with your family, but you also got to get your work done. So what I've come up with is what I call a balanced approach to dealing with work and family. Now, I don't have a title for the book yet, but that's the concept, and I have all the material. I have used it in my counseling sessions, so I know it works. It's worked for everybody that I've implemented this to and they've tried it out. And so that's what I'm looking to do. Do you have a quick story of the best thing that ever happened to you in speaking and the worst thing that ever happened to you in speaking? Do you ever have an audience from hell or do you have anything go wrong? Anything like that you want to share? Okay, I'll give you a little taste of both. Okay. Worst experience is when you're doing a comedic speech and nobody's laughing, and it's like you still got time to kill. That's a long speech. The best speech is when somebody comes to you afterward and said, you know what you said changed my life, I won't be the same. Thank you. And that's the best speech that you could ever give, even if you don't reach anybody, but that one can make a difference. When you speak to audiences, you're going to have people who are falling asleep, they're going to be rolling their eyes, but you're going to have people who are really into it. And what I've learned is to build up your encouraging energy by focus on those who want to be there, who enjoy being there, who are getting the message, and they're going to do something with it. That's right. And that's really important. I tell speakers, you got people rolling their eyes or giving you faces. It's something. It's not you. Something's up with them, skip over them, but you got to move around your whole audience as much as possible and look for all those people that you're changing their lives. One of the tips that you gave me was knowing your material. So tell us a little bit more about that. Well, we talked earlier about the icebreaker speech. but it's really the icebreaker speech and Toastmasters where you talk about yourself and who knows you better than yourself. Some people feel that, well, I know me so I can just get up there and just talk about me. However, sometimes when you get up there, even though in your mind, you know what you want to say, when you look out, you get that blank and say, what was I going to say? If you've practiced your material, then you know your material. And I always tell this to all speakers, at least have three points that you want to talk about. And one thing that we've learned in Toastmasters is to tell 'em. Tell 'em, then tell 'em what you told them. So first of all, you want to say, well, what is it that you're up there talking about? So you tell 'em, this is what I'm going to talk about, even if it's I'm going to talk about me and a vacation that I had and why it was the best vacation ever. Oh, so now we're prepared. We know what you're going to tell us, so tell us the story. That's to tell us, and then tell us what you told us. So at the end, you wrap it all up by saying, so now you have an idea. When I went to Florida, why that was the very best vacation that I had. And that's all through preparation, preparing and knowing what you want to talk about. You prepare constantly. Every week you get to prepare new sermon. Preparation is important not only from the speaking side, but the business side. There's so much prep work that we have to do as professional speakers. What suggestions do you have for people about the preparation process on throughout the week? I'm sure that you're probably, I'm imagining you're reading material. You'll see something on TV and go, that's what I got to talk about. Because as a writer, I write a syndicated column every week. So my work is similar except I'm not delivering it for an hour multiple times, but I have to write a column and I'll see something during the week or I'll see somebody and go, that's an interesting point. Preparation tips. How would you guide people who are professional speakers who want to be professional speakers in preparing what they're going to talk about? Any suggestions? Well, definitely. First of all, you want to make sure that you have a subject that you have a passion about, and you talk about that in your book, soapbox to the stage. If you don't have the passion, then you're not going to be too enthused about delivering the message. So although there's good material out there, if you have the good material in front of you, but you're not excited about it, it doesn't turn you on, you're just presenting the material. People can tell. But when you get material that you can just sink your teeth into and you are excited about it, if nobody else is excited about the material, you are excited about the material that is conveyed to your audience and they start getting enthused and they want to hear what you have to say. So in selecting your material, you also need to understand that you can't tell it all. And what my pastor told me, don't make people happy twice. Happy you got up and happy you sat down because you talk too long. That's good. So. Even if you can have the best material, you can't talk about it at all. So you want to bring out the highlights. What are some of the things that really turned you on when you read about the subject? And although there's a whole lot you can say, sometimes you have confined times that you can speak. Sometimes people says, well, can you talk about that for about 10 minutes? Then next thing you know, look, I know I told you 10, but you really got five. So how do you condense a whole lot of information into a condensed version? Well, you can do that by making sure that you have a comfortable amount of information to deliver within the timeframe that they give you. And that's very important. Whatever you do, stay within the timeframe. So if you have to cut it, you could say, there were five points I was going to talk about. I'll talk about three. How can you do that? Because you know your material. Alright, so then you're a pastor. So I have to ask you this question. What about the pastors? And you can't answer for everybody, but how about the pastors who know that they normally deliver a 45 minute sermon or an hour, an hour and a half. They have the timeframe as soon as they go over because they're so filled with passion for their topic, and now people are thinking about the relatives are coming over, I got to get the Turkey dinner in the oven, or the Patriots are coming on, and now people look at their watches, but I think they forget that they don't get it. They've got to get out of their head and get back into the room. Right? They kind of lose track. Exactly. Exactly. But the good training that I had in Toastmasters is that you've practiced to give a speech within a certain set of time. That's what I do. And on the average, I look to have all of my sermons always in around the same time. Now people say, well, you can't control how the spirit moves and how God's moving you. And there may be more you want to say. Well, that's true. One thing that you learned is that you always read your audience. Some people vote with their actions because somebody can have an open Bible. And then when they think that you've gone too long, the signal is when they do, you're not done, but they've closed theirs. So that's a hint. Or they're looking around and they're like you said, you know, you've starting to lose your audience. Even if you're a pastor, if you're a preacher, if you're a speaker, watch your audience. Know your audience, read your audience. There are telltale signs. People will always remember a good speech if it's not long. But if you're long, even if it was great information, people just say, yeah, he was all right. But he talked too long. I had a situation one time, I was speaking in front of a group and my watch died. I'm starting to see signs from the audience that they're looking at their watches, they're yawning. They weren't listening to me. And I'm going, I got plenty of time. What's going on here? And then somebody, a lady in the front row, she went and I said, excuse me, just a minute. I have 10 after. She says, no, it's 45 minutes past that. And I went, oh my goodness. And I felt so bad. But again, these are things that'll come up. So ever since then, I always make sure I have a backup clock somewhere. And if I don't have a backup clock, I usually find someone in the audience to be my backup. Look, if I am this close, let me know. And if I travel with family or I have an assistant, I make sure that they do that. But you're so right. You can have the greatest message in the world, but that's nice. If your audience isn't listening anymore, forget it. And the other thing that I like to offer along with that is what you said before, if they give you 10 minutes and your promise is 10 minutes on a topic and now it's five, you got to go with the change because they don't care. Your audience doesn't care. Especially if you're at a conference and they're on a schedule. Absolutely. And now you are cutting into their break that's you're cutting into when they're supposed to use the restroom, go make their phone calls, check their email, and that's a huge violation. That is a dead giveaway not to get invited back if you violate people's schedules. Right. Have you seen that? Exactly. You're absolutely right. And the thing is this, it's not personal, but like you said, people, they schedule their breaks, they schedule activities, especially if you're at a conference. So you just make the adjustment. And that goes back to knowing your material, because if you know exactly what you can cut out. What are the most important things that you want to make sure they walk out of there with? And if you don't know your material, you're trying to fish through your material trying to figure out, well, what do I say and what do I bring out and what do I choose and how do I do this? Nobody cares. Nobody cares. The classic that happens to me on a regular basis is I'm hired to be the keynote speaker, and I sat down on it for two weeks. I went over and I crafted this one hour keynote, or sometimes it's like 45 minutes keynote. I'm kicking off this event. And they have a speaker who gets up there to do their housekeeping. Before you know it, they're chewing into my time. And now my keynote's been reduced from 45 to 20 minutes, they're not going to change the fee. They're going to pay me. But now I've got to take a 45 minute speech and break it down to 20 minutes. And you're right. And if you don't know your material, you're going to go panic. Oh my gosh, where do I start in here? And unfortunately, too many speakers, they don't get that. They try to take more time or they'll say something like, well, I don't really have a whole lot of time, but let me get, nobody cares about that either. That's right. Don't tell me. I call it showing your underwear. Don't show me your underwear. Just perform. That's what you're here for, right? That's. Right. Absolutely right. It's not fair. But that's the way things happen. Enthusiasm that plays a role in it, right? It works hand in hand with passion. You got to be enthused about your material because if it doesn't excite you, how is it going to excite anybody out there? And also passion. Passion takes enthusiasm. One step beyond in that if you have a passion about what you're talking about, then people will hear your sincerity. They will hear that he means what he says, he believes what he says, he wants me to get it. This is very important to him. Even if it's not important to me, I can tell it's important to him. That's why it's very important. And one thing I would like to say, and this is not a plug, and it's not because you're my friend, I would encourage folk to get soapbox to the stage. The reason why is because it is a consolidated book read from start to finish to really get to that point from doing free gigs to paid gigs, but also how do I get my contacts established established as a professional speaker? Excellent. Well, thank you for that pitch, Clyde. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming out, and I appreciate you doing that, and good luck to you. Glad to, and you're speaking. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Get Paid to Speak podcast with me, bill Corbett. I've got more great episodes coming up, so be sure to hit the subscribe or the follow button. And if you are interested in checking out my book from the soapbox to the stage, check out the website start a speaking business.com. That's start a speaking business.com. You'll get to see my new book trailer video. This recording is the property of Bill Corbitt and the Get Paid to Speak podcast copyright 2022. All rights reserved.