Happy New Year! Let’s start this year being proactive! Yes, we want everything to work out perfectly every time we speak. Most of the time things do run fairly smoothly. But, as the Boy Scout motto suggests, it’s in our best interest to “always be prepared.”
As a speaker, one of the best ways you can be proactive is to start figuring out what kinds of events and occurrences bother you the most. That way you can prepare for them ahead of time. The more prepared you are, the more confident you will be, and the less likely you are to end up in the midst of a fire without a fire extinguisher.
Let’s start with a story. I know a speaker who was hired to speak at an event about 150 miles from where he lived. He was being paid to present/train for two hours in front of about 50 people, who had paid to be attend his training. It was a great gig for him, and he was an experienced speaker so there shouldn’t be any fires to put out, right?
He left home in plenty of time to arrive at least 20 minutes early. He had everything he needed with him. He arrived at the event. No one was there except for the very angry event planner. He’d planned out everything but had failed to realize that the town he was speaking in was just on the other side of the state line, which also happened to be a time zone line. He showed up 20 minutes early just like he’d planned, but was actually 40 minutes late! OUCH!!
Fire #1 – Always double check those seemingly simple details about your engagement, like the date, the time, and the place, especially if there were any changes made along the way.
Fire #2 – Always make sure you have your speaker tool kit with you. I know, I’ve said this on more than one occasion. But sometimes it’s the simplest things that can throw you off your game. We all have our own favorite items, go-to tools, and trinkets. Not having them, as inconsequential as they may seem, might be the “something’s not quite right” difference between success and failure in your head. Knowing that you have something on hand to put out a small fire before it gets rolling is going to help you stay in your speaker comfort zone.
Fire #3 – Be prepared to put out a fire even when you aren’t the one who started it. Event planners have bad days too. What if they forget to print out something you were planning on sharing with your audience, or the intro you provided is sitting on someone’s desk across town, or they promised you technology they don’t have. These situations can be frustrating when they happen, but blaming the event planner isn’t going to accomplish anything. If you’ve done a good job of preparing, chances are pretty good you’ll be able to put out their fire. Are you obligated to remedy their situation? Maybe not, but isn’t it better to be prepared so you can confidently go about your business of presenting?
Fire #4 – Technology and/or technical problems. You won’t always have a fix for these problems. Just think about your worst case scenarios ahead of time and come up with a back-up plan just in case you encounter a situation there isn’t a fix for.
Bottom line, you can’t fix everything. Sometimes, life just gets in the way. Don’t even get me started on things like traffic jams, accidents, and delays, clothing malfunctions, and of course, the weather.
To quote Louis Pasteur: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
‘Til we speak again,
~ Beth