Presenting Smartly | part three

Here’s another lesson about delivering standout presentations from stand-up comics as first seen in HBO’s TALKING FUNNY television show.

Highly successful presenters, like highly successful comics, deeply understand how to affect an audience. The more successful a presenter becomes, they more they know how to say the right things in the right ways to make a connection with their audience.

I’ve seen some very polished presenters make a connection with their audience but the presenter isn’t connected to their own material. In other words, the presenter doesn’t believe in their material but because they understand how to tell a story on-stage, the audience is still affected in a positive way.

These polished presenters make a fabulous living. Give them a topic. Give them stage time. Give them an audience. And, watch them go. They are highly skilled and highly compensated communicators. But have they lost something?

Ricky Gervais touched upon this issue in TALKING FUNNY when he shared, “It’s not just being funny. It’s being proud of your stuff and doing things that other people couldn’t do.”

For presenters, it’s important to be proud of your material. It’s also important to craft your presentation point-of-view that is distinctly you. But it’s most important for you, as a presenter, to speak on topics you are uniquely qualified to talk about.

If you aren’t uniquely qualified to talk about a topic, I urge you to refer someone you know who is qualified to talk about that topic.

From time to time I get asked to give a presentation on an issue/subject I’m not passionate about. These are topics that aren’t important to me but they are important to someone else. Thus, I refer someone who is proud of their unique point-of-view on a topic and who can deliver a killer presentation.

You might be able to positively affect an audience talking about something that isn’t important to you. However, I’m certain someone else you know would be better suited to give that presentation. Consider spreading some love and refer someone you know who could deliver a standout presentation on a topic you aren’t passionate about.