A professional speaker for 13 years, he is the only person in Africa to have won the Toastmasters ‘Southern African Championships’ for public speaking five times. His books are published by Penguin Random House and in the last two years include:
At the PSASA, he shared his insights on how to become an iconic speaker.
1. Marketing is at least 80% of what speakers do. Treat it like a business and be consistent with all the basics, including having an excellent website that you keep up-to-date, working with speakers bureaus and agencies, writing articles, developing books, products and programmes and using social media extensively.
2. Move the dial visibly. While it is good to be a ‘spectacular’ speaker, the real decisive test is whether a team or organisation can measure positive change after you leave. Have you ‘moved the dial’? In a best-case scenario, you show leaders how to add an extra zero to their organisation’s bottom line, or you solve an expensive leadership problem.
3. Lose the need for approval. Standing ovations serve a speaker’s ego, but they are no measure of your value to the people who booked you. Your real task might be to make an audience uncomfortable with the status quo, not to be praised.
4. Generic positioning rarely works. If you do a little bit of customer service, a little bit of leadership and a little bit of communication, you will disappear in a sea of sameness. Strong, specific positioning is much more powerful. Be the niche expert known in one strong area, rather than an indistinguishable jack of all trades.
5. When you champion a cause, it changes the energy in your marketing. To become an iconic speaker, do not think of yourself as a trainer of topic matter. Think of yourself as a champion for a specific change in humanity. Speak in a strong voice, with a strong viewpoint.
6. Get as much mileage as possible out of each idea you have. Manufacture media moments and repackage ideas using new frameworks, in order to keep your messages flowing to the market.
7. Be the desired end-result. You are selling an outcome. You must be a visual (and authentic) representation of that success. Do they want to be like you?
8. Develop original content and produce relentlessly, including books, articles and thought-leadership content.
9. Pricing is a big part of the perception you create in the market. Don’t price yourself too low.
10. Remember that we enjoy the ‘privilege of the platform.’ We have the opportunity to speak into people’s lives and give guidance and hope. Take the privilege extremely seriously.
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