Who Gives the Best Presentation Skills Feedback: Episode 13

How to Get Useful Speaking Feedback: From Worst to Best Sources

Jenn explains why speakers should actively solicit feedback to iterate on their talks, improve performance, and earn rebookings and referrals. She contrasts helpful feedback with a negative experience watching a competitor’s webinar where a volunteer speaker was repeatedly interrupted and bluntly criticized in front of hundreds, advocating instead for supportive, end-of-presentation feedback like Toastmasters and her Mic Drop Moments process. 

She recommends using Talkadot to collect immediate audience “smile report” data, quotes, and social graphics, and then ranks feedback sources from worst to best: self-review (often overly critical), staff (too supportive), family and friends (inconsistent and not specific), AI tools (useful analytics but limited on connection), other speakers (valuable if guided with specific questions), audience members and event organizers (more candid survey data), and finally speaker coaches for objective, encouraging, mindset-and-mechanics support. She previews next week’s topic on speaking fees.

Resources mentioned:

Talkadot https://www.talkadot.com/s/jennespinosa-goswami/share

Mic Drop Moments (for 2 levels of feedback) www.calendly.com/jennchat

Evaluate your own presentation with this free guide: www.jennspingo.com/free-guide

00:00 Why Feedback Matters

01:28 A Webinar Feedback Horror Story

04:23 Better Ways to Give Feedback

06:06 Fast Audience Surveys with Talkadot

07:20 Ranking Feedback Sources

07:34 Worst to Mid Feedback Options

12:21 Speakers and Audience Insights

14:41 Event Organizer Reports

15:36 Why a Speaker Coach Helps Most

17:49 Recap and Next Steps

Have a question or suggestion for a future episode topic? Email me jenn@jennspingo.com.

Ready to deliver mic drop moments in your next presentation? Schedule a call to learn more about coaching www.calendly.com/jennchat

Looking to book a speaker for your corporate or association event on topics including leadership and communication? View my programs at www.jennspingo.com

Transcript

Why Feedback Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You know the number one thing that speakers often tell me when they're coaching is Jen. I will know I have been a good speaker when the audience comes up to me and they said, You did an amazing job. Today's episode is all about feedback. Good feedback? Not so good feedback. And who to solicit feedback from in order to become a better speaker? Are you ready to get started? Let's go. Feedback is one of the biggest tools you can use as a speaker. Now, the problem is until you get on stage and ask people for their feedback, you're probably not going to get a whole heck of a lot of it. And that's okay. But as a speaker, you need to ask for feedback from the event organizer, from the audience members, even from colleagues or team members you might have in the room with you, because iteration and improving upon your speech content is how you show up as a better speaker and receive more speaking referrals. So we all know that you have to bring a great performance as a speaker in order to get rehired. The way you get better is by listening to what resonates with your audience, what doesn't resonate with them, and improving each iteration of your speech until you can deliver a consistent, reliable experience that people want to invite you to their stages from. How do we do that though? How do we get better feedback?

A Webinar Feedback Horror Story

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Let's go back to an experience I had when I was checking out one of my competitors. As a speaker coach, there are quite a few competitors I have here in the US. And of course, I have attended some of their events. I have looked at some of the webinars they offer. I want to know what my competitors are doing. Now, I'm not going to name any names here, but you might be able to identify who this person is. And I'm not here to call anyone out, but I will share a story of one time I attended a webinar. This is a virtual event. There were hundreds of people on the call. Again, it was one of those free virtual webinars just to learn about how to be a better speaker. And there was an opportunity for hot seat coaching. Hot seat coaching in front of total strangers you just met. You know you're passionate about your topic. You have that signature speech, or at least the seed of a signature speech, and you have an opportunity to be in front of a speaker coach who will give you live feedback in front of an audience. Whew. That's a scary proposition. I'm someone who coaches people all the time, and I was not raising my hand for that opportunity, but there were a few brave women in the room who did raise their hand and said, yes, I will accept the feedback. So there was one particular person who went up, and I believe she had a few minutes to deliver a section of her presentation. Now, if you've never delivered a small segment of your presentation, you could get very upset or anxious about which segment of my presentation is the most impactful. That's a hard decision to make. So she had made her decision of what segment of her presentation and started delivering that part of the presentation. Not only was she interrupted multiple times within a few short minutes, but also she was pretty much called out in front of the entire room about things that she could do better. Now I didn't hear a lot of positive enforcement or encouragement from this particular speaker coach to that person who volunteered to show up and show up boldly. So that kind of didn't hit me the right way. I've seen this before too with other speaker coaches at a live experience where a person started into a segment of their presentation, maybe the beginning of their presentation in this case, and were coached by multiple people within that scenario. Now, again, if you're a person who is used to delivering your presentation beginning to end without interruption, and then you get feedback, it can be quite startling to be interrupted in the middle of your presentation. Not only that, to be told that what you just delivered is maybe not it, and try this other thing instead. Now, I'm not saying that this was wrong coaching. It's not really coaching the way I understand it as an ICF certified coach. It was feedback, simultaneous, interrupted feedback in the middle of a person's prepared presentation.

Better Ways to Give Feedback

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Now I come from Toastmasters, so we waited until the end of the presentation before we gave feedback. We gave verbal feedback, we also gave written feedback, and this is the process I use in my mic drop moments program as well. So there are ways to deliver feedback without making someone feel shamed, embarrassed, or calling them out in front of hundreds of people that they don't know and may never meet again. So I do think that there is a positive way to provide feedback and perhaps less positive ways to provide feedback. I call that my nasty woman's story because that particular person, she's wonderful in the industry, she's very successful in the industry. Her approach is not something that I would do. So again, there is a way to provide feedback, but maybe not as direct, maybe not as in your face, maybe not as blunt. And it's important to me that when I work with clients, they feel encouraged to continue on with what they're doing. So I always make sure to include that positive reinforcement because I know I would struggle and I would get very critical about myself if somebody told me mid-sentence, well, do that differently, or you didn't do that the right way. We all have things that we prefer. And I think some of the speaker coaches in the industry, again, this is just my hot take. You may have a different opinion. I think some speaker coaches in the industry are telling you what they would like to hear, not necessarily what might be best in that scenario or that situation. Um, so that's my small little soapbox on some speaker coaches and maybe those who have a different approach than I would take with feedback. So we know that feedback is important. We know that we should ask for feedback. How can you get that feedback? I

Fast Audience Surveys with Talkadot

SPEAKER_01 6:06

use a service called TalkAdot. Shout out to Arel Moody, who created Talk A Dot, and has built it to an amazing program that provides immediate feedback. I've been using this for several years now, and I'm always happy with what they provide. They don't just provide specific recommendations from the people in your audience, but it also provides like a graph of how valuable was the presentation, how likely are they to recommend you to other presentations? It's what we call a smile report. One of my speaker colleagues mentioned this. She said it's a smile report. Basically, it's saying yes or no, did you like that presentation? Did you not like that presentation? How likely are you to consider that presentation in the future or not likely? Um, so there's that, but then you also get specific feedback from clients who did say that they're okay being quoted on social media, and Talka Dot creates social media graphics for you. If you're interested in using Talka Dot and haven't yet started with a membership, there is a free level. I will have those links in the show notes. It is an affiliate link. So if you decide to um enroll in a membership, I get a small commission. But I don't recommend anything that I don't use myself or I don't feel has amazing value for you. So that's one version of feedback is a smile report. You know, immediate audience reactions.

Ranking Feedback Sources

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Now I'd like to go from worst to best in terms of the feedback you might seek as a speaker and why I'm choosing some at the best and some at the worst. Let's get started. I have quite a few

Worst to Mid Feedback Options

SPEAKER_01 7:34

of these. So let's start with the worst feedback you could possibly receive as a speaker is the feedback from you watching your own videos. It is painful to watch yourself on camera. It is painful to listen to yourself and you need to do it. But here's the problem when you step off stage, what usually happens? Either you're pumping your fists in your air, in the air, and you're like, that was the best event ever. I feel so great. The endorphins are high. Or you said, Oh, gosh darn it, I forgot to say that one thing, or I forgot my call to action that time. Or I don't know what to do now because it's ABC. We tend to get up in our heads about this, and this is why this podcast helps you with mindset. We are our worst critics. Don't leave your feedback to yourself because you are going to be cruel and mean, and even worse than that speaker coach I mentioned in that story. You will not be nice to yourself and you won't be objective about what you're seeing and hearing either. So that's the worst kind of feedback you can receive is from yourself. I'm not saying avoid it. I'm saying that's the lowest level of feedback you should look for. Then we have staff. Now, this is if you have staff like an employee, a VA, a table assistant, um, a partner, somebody who is in the fight with you. They're there because you're either paying them or because they're doing the work with you. They will give you feedback, but it'll probably be along the lines of great job, Jen, do it again. You know, they're there because you're paying them and because they they believe in what you do. So they wouldn't want to critique you, they might feel bad about critiquing you, or they might not have enough knowledge of your speech or what that audience is expecting to be able to give you precise or specific feedback. So, again, they're your supporters, they're your encouragers, but they're not necessarily the best source of feedback. Your teen or your staff, if you have them. The next level, which is a little more effective, but still not hitting the mark when it comes to feedback, are your family and friends? How many times have you presented in front of your pets, the mirror, your children, your partner? Even if they're halfway listening to you, you may think, oh, this this counts. This is rehearsal. I'm in front of another creature, and they're gonna give me feedback. But what kind of feedback do they typically give you? Oh, maybe you shouldn't do that. Okay, so this is my personal experience. When I present in front of my children, so during the pandemic, you know, I did a lot of virtual presentations, and my children had certain opinions on that. My children are uh 15 and 22, so they're not afraid to share their opinion with me. We're very close, and that's that's cool. But they'll be like, Mom, why did you do this voice? Or mom, you went into sales mode there. And sometimes that feedback is useful if you find yourself in a pattern that you're not aware of. And sometimes that feedback makes you feel, again, bad about yourself and like you completely need to redo everything you've done. So there can be some feedback from family and friends, which is either not helpful or not specific enough for you to improve upon what you're already doing. Also, let's be real, your family and friends may or may not have any interest in what it is you're talking about. Even if they love you, they may not love everything you talk about. So they won't have specific information around what you're talking about that will help you improve how you explain it to someone else. So they're probably not your best bet. Now let's move up one more level of feedback, like an importance. What about AI? We can use services like UDLE and some other AI uh prompts out there, some built-in tools for your presentation slides that will actually evaluate your presentation skills. That's great that we have access to tools like this. We don't have to pay for them or don't have to pay that much for them, but they are limited in what they can do for you. It's one level above family and friends because it probably has more information on you and your topic than your family and friends. It also will tell you some of the external things, like how many ums, ahs, and so's you say in your sentences. It might tell you things that are useful, like analytics, like how fast do you speak? And how does that compare to other people in your industry or for your age group? So it might give you some helpful analytics, but that doesn't mean it's gonna tell you how to connect better with your audience. So I'm not discouraging AI because that's kind of a weird position to be in today, is discouraging the use of AI. There are uses for it, but in terms of feedback, it's about middle ground for how it can help you improve your presentation skills.

Speakers and Audience Insights

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Let's look to the next level of useful feedback, which would be other speakers. Who knows better than how to connect with an audience than another speaker? Another speaker who's out there on stages doing their thing in the fight with you, um, has had their own experience with feedback, whether that's from friends and family or audience members, they know what type of feedback might be helpful for you. So they are useful in terms of getting specific, measurable feedback that you can take and shift what you're doing. Unfortunately, other speakers might hesitate to give you critical feedback. So they might encourage you, cheerlead you on, but not give you negative feedback. So it's important to know if someone is giving you specifically one type of feedback, either positive or negative, it's not balanced enough and objective enough for you to really improve upon what it is you're doing. Some of it you might be able to piecemeal take care of and improve and iterate, but not if it's overwhelmingly positive or negative. So that's one thing to pay attention to. And most people don't learn how to deliver feedback. That's not a skill that we learn in school. It's not something we learn in the workplace, unfortunately. There are some trainings out there, but not everyone has access to those trainings. So other speakers are a great source of feedback, but kind of cue them and make it better feedback by saying, hey, on minute five, I feel like I stumble on this. What were your impressions? Or if you cue them and let them know specifically, I'm working on this piece here, I'm playing around with this way of delivering it. Can you tell me what happened there? That is a way to get better feedback from other speakers. Let's look at the next round up, which is your audience members. They are giving you feedback. Now, the audience is giving you feedback before you get on the stage. If you're introducing yourself to them before you get on stage, they're giving you feedback when you're on stage. You're delivering your content, you're noticing the facial expressions, their body language. If they're on their phones, you're probably not connecting with them the way you want to. And they also give you feedback when you step off the stage. So multiple ways for your audience to give you feedback. And some of that is impromptu when you're in the room with them, and some of it is when you step away and they're not looking at you as they're providing the feedback. So you could start with the talk a dot report, that smile report. If

Event Organizer Reports

SPEAKER_01 14:41

you want to pump that up to the next level of useful feedback, go back to your event organizer. Event organizers will survey your audience as part of the day. And that feedback might look quite different from what a talk a dot smile report would look like. So if you're brave and if you're willing to kind of work surgically on your presentation, maybe you're like, everyone keeps telling me good things. I know there's room for improvement here. Ask the event manager or the event planner or organizer, can I get a copy of the feedback report you received? I haven't done this yet. I'm challenging myself to do this in the future, but apparently people are brutally honest when they don't know that it's going to go to the speaker because they're talking to the event planner and saying what they want more of or less of in the future. They're going to be very honest with that event planner who's often internal to the company, as opposed to you, who they just met.

Why a Speaker Coach Helps Most

SPEAKER_01 15:36

And last, the most important and I think helpful feedback you can receive is from a speaker coach. Now, speaker coaching, of course, I'm a speaker coach, so I've seen how it impacts people. I've seen how it has improved not just their delivery, but how they feel about their delivery. Again, mic drop mindset is all about mindset and mechanics. So a lot of what we've talked about today is mechanics, you know, feedback. Do this, don't do that. But there's also the mindset of how you feel about that feedback. You don't receive a lot of feedback as a speaker, but when you're working with a speaker coach, not only are you working with someone who's in the business, but you're working with someone who cares about you and wants to encourage you and help you get to that next level. And if they keep themselves outside of their subjectivity and don't tell you what they like or don't like, instead, they're looking at what the audience is hoping to receive from you based on your prompts, based on your speaker marketing materials, it's a different experience. Um, so speaker coaching can work on a number of levels. You could go from recorded sessions. I have reviewed other people's recordings. I have a whole series on YouTube called Talking TED with Jen, where I basically reviewed some of the most popular TED Talks of all time. Amy Cuddies is on there, Daniel Pinks is on there, Julian Treasure. And these are multi-TED Talk deliverers. So they are people who've been doing it a while, but I looked at their first presentation, not their second or third, and I reviewed some of the things they were doing there. So you can get a sense of how I show up and what I talk to people about. I also do presentation skills coaching with people in the podcast studio here. So there's a feedback form I use. If you want a copy of the form, I'm happy to provide that to you. But the reason why speaker coaching might take you up to that next level for feedback is because we work on all levels. As a speaker ourselves, as a coach who cares about you and your goals, and as someone who's experienced plenty of audience feedback and event planner feedback and can keep that objectivity. We may not be in the room with you at the time you're delivering the presentation, but we are there cheering you on because we know that your message matters and we want you to get that message in front of more people.

Recap and Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 17:49

So let's briefly recap. We talked about feedback and how to get people to listen and provide you more specific, more useful feedback. We talked about the different levels from worst to best. I would love to hear from you now. Which level of feedback do you tend to seek out? And which do you avoid like the plague? I would love to hear from you. I'm not saying you have to use all of these levels of feedback, but depending on what you're hoping to do, choose the right type of feedback for the stage that you're in right now and the stage you want to get to be if you're going to be a paid professional speaker. Next week, we'll talk more about speaking fees, how to know what to charge. I'll see you on stage.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Thank you for tuning in to Mic Drop Mindset. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to leave a review on Spotify, Apple, or share a comment over on YouTube. In the meanwhile, don't forget to visit my website, Jen with2Ns spingo.com