Know Your Performance
Overview
This session will guide you through evaluating your performance, determining what to do differently next time, and extending your comfort zone to address new topics, formats, and audiences. Speaking is a beautiful skill, and each new opportunity to speak will help you to grow.
Each one of us has speaking experience. You may just be starting out, speaking to small groups, or maybe you’ve spoken to hundreds of people throughout the years. If you are here, you recognize that we all have room to expand our skills and our comfort.
The process of growing as a speaker is simple:
- Find the next opportunity to speak.
- Prepare and deliver the next talk.
- Review how you did and learn from it.
That’s it! Once done, repeat the process. With these simple steps, you create a growth cycle to go through over and over again. As you get comfortable with this cycle, you will reach for new opportunities that stretch you a little more each time.
Finding the Next Opportunity
Grab a sheet of paper and jot down your ideas for your next speaking opportunity. Note the groups and venues in your community that you think would be a good fit for your message of building trust and connection as people work to make the community stronger. Below are some ideas to get you started, but think about the ones that are right for you:
- Local civic organizations (e.g. Rotary, Kiwanis, Elks clubs)
- Churches and faith groups
- Schools, community colleges, and universities
- Education associations like the PTA or Alumni Associations
- Conferences and gatherings that are centered around sharing ideas (e.g. TEDx, Ignite Talks, The Moth, Creative Mornings)
- Personal and professional networks
- At work
- Social clubs
Once you’ve got a sense of what you’re aiming for, you’ll want to think about 3 key things as you find your next opportunity to speak:
- Audience: Where do you want to speak next? To whom? And why? How might this audience be different from audiences you’ve spoken to in the past? Revisit the tools offered in [Module 3][/courses/3-know-your-audience/] to determine how best to get to know new audiences. Each and every time you seek to reach a new audience, it pays to think about things through their lens, so that you can prepare a speech that really connects.
- Topic: How does your message fit with the interests of the audience? As you think about growing as a speaker to reach new audiences, you’ll also want to think about how to adapt your message in ways that will resonate. What fresh take on your topic will you offer? Your core message may be at the heart of every talk you give, but you’ll need to frame and deliver that message in unique ways for fresh audiences. Consider how you’ll tailor the framing, offering relevant stories, facts and examples the audience can see themselves.
- Pitch: Once you’ve thought through how you’re adapting your material as a speaker, then you’re ready to pitch yourself for new venues and opportunities. It can feel awkward to put yourself out there and pitch your ideas. Plus, pitching is an art form all on its own, so read on for more tips on how to secure that next speaking opportunity.
How to Pitch the Next Opportunity
As you plan to reach new audiences and venues, you’ve also got to plan how you’ll reach out to secure those speaking engagements. And that means crafting a solid pitch. A good pitch answers these questions:
- What will you talk about?
- Why is it relevant to that audience?
- Why are you the right person to speak?
A solid pitch is no more than three or four paragraphs,carefully tailored to the group or venue you hope to speak to. Your pitch should highlight the unconventional credentials (more on that in Module 2) that make you an ideal person to address this topic with this audience. A strong pitch will also describe the experience you’ll create as a speaker, offering a sense of the journey you’ll take the audience on.
By way of example, watch this video clip of Weave speaker Anthony Sartori at a live panel event with the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia. As you watch, consider how you might have pitched him as a speaker for this panel.
clip from full conference
Based on what you saw in the clip, which would have been the best pitch for Sartori’s remarks on the panel?
This example illustrates how a solid pitch focuses on the core message of the speaker, while blending and balancing their personal stories in the larger context of the problem they’re addressing and the solutions they’re advancing. A strong pitch – like a strong speech – is rooted in mission and brought to life by story.
Once you have your pitch, then you want to consider the supporting materials that you can send. This should include a short bio to show that you have experience on the topic. It should include a title and one-paragraph description of your talk, which might be used to promote the talk. Finally, you might include a list of your prior speaking engagements, or any media stories on you, or a link to a video of you speaking.
Now you are ready to pitch yourself as a speaker. You’ll need one more thing - persistence!
Leveraging Your Network
Now comes the most important part: reaching out through your network contacts to offer yourself as a speaker.
Refer back to the list you made earlier about the venues and groups you might like to speak to. Can you identify three to five contacts in your personal or professional network that might be able to link to you speaking opportunities in front of these audiences?
By persistently reaching out to contacts in your own network and in the broader community, you’ll be able to identify and secure more and better opportunities to carry your message to important audiences.
How to Review Yourself
We’ve talked above about growing as a speaker by taking on new topics, adapting to new formats, and reaching new audiences. But another important way you’ll grow as a speaker is by reviewing and reflecting on each and every speech you deliver, to continuously reflect on your performance and enhance your skills over time. Assess your own performance by reflecting on how well you connected with the audience. Gather feedback from peers, from feedback forms. Ask your peers for their honest feedback, reminding them that their observations will help you grow into an ever-more skillful speaker to carry your vital message far and wide.
Then apply that feedback as you prepare for your next speaking opportunity. And the next one after that. Over time, you’ll develop into an effective, sought-after speaker.
Time for Reflection: Think about the last talk you gave. Grab a piece of paper to write down your thoughts:
- What went well?
- What would you want to improve?
- What can you do differently for the next speech?
This is your growth strategy.
Whether you are working towards better knowing your audience, better engaging them authentically, or trying a new topic or format, use your reflections to help you grow as a public speaker. Do this exercise after every speaking engagement.
Opportunities Abound!
If you are ready to launch or expand your public speaking, the next step is to find opportunities to speak. You’ll find some of those within the Weave Community. It’s a safe setting to practice your speaking with other weavers as the audience.
Once you join the community [ADD LINK TO WELCOME PAGE], you can sign up for a Circles group, which is great if you want to build some confidence talking in a group. These are small group discussions, usually of six to eight weavers, that are led by a guide and explore a topic. Each occurs on a special video platform where everyone appears in a circle and when it’s your turn to talk, you are spotlighted in the middle. Circles meet once or in a series every other week.
The community also holds regular gatherings on Zoom hosted by different weavers to discuss topics. You could propose a gathering on a topic you know and then work with the Weave team to pitch it to the community. The Weave team can help you find one or two other members to serve as resources on the topic. That is similar to the experience of being on a panel. Or you could lead a workshop that you want to pitch to organizations where you live and work. You’ll get practice and feedback to hone the workshop.
Michael Skoler, Weave’s communication’s director, describes another great way to practice telling your story to the community where you end up with a video you can use to support your pitching.