248: What Professional Speakers Do…that You Should too with Grant Baldwin

Pete Mockaitis
Grant, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Grant Baldwin
Pete, it’s like Christmas morning waking up, looking at the calendar and saying, “Today I get to talk to Pete,” and it’s here, the moment has arrived. And it’s like accepting an Academy Award or something.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you probably say that to all your interviewers.

Grant Baldwin
You know what, you can go back to all of them. I don’t know that I’ve ever said that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat with you, boy, because we met years ago when you generously volunteered to speak at my HOBY, Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership, seminar back in Champaign-Urbana, and I’ve just been watching you from afar.

Grant Baldwin
How many years ago was that?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it is in the ballpark of ten.

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, I would say eight to ten.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, so I’ve just been watching you from afar with your podcast and what you’ve been doing, and I said, “Well, hey, wait a second. I think there’s a fit here.” So, I want to dig into a lot of the learnings that you have developed and shared with all of your clients through The Speaker Lab.

Grant Baldwin
Okay. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Before we do that, I just did a quick search. I couldn’t help myself. June of 2009.

Pete Mockaitis
2009, yeah.

Grant Baldwin
There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Eight and a half. Wow. And good organization.

Grant Baldwin
Well, I remember it’s a fun event.

Pete Mockaitis
Plus, the title is a pretty searchable keyword that won’t trip too many other things.

Grant Baldwin
It’s in the archives.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, yeah, I want to chat about some of your insights discovered and shared with your Speaker Lab clientele. But, first, I thought every speaker has a pretty wild story when it comes to their travel and their mishaps. Could you share with us one of your most hilariously awesome tales or a tale that comes from one of the speakers you worked with?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, so I’ll give you both. I’ll give you both quickly. So, one that happened to me, I remember, several years ago was I was speaking at an event in Colorado and flying from Denver to Chicago, and then was going to, once I get into Chicago, had something like a two-hour drive into somewhere in Illinois or, I don’t know, what would that be, Eastern Iowa.

And so, I was in Denver and a big blizzard, snowstorm or something comes blowing in and it’s just dumping snow and we’re on the plane, the plane is delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed. So, they’re finally get ready to take off, and at this point it is something like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. And so, by the time I land in Chicago it’s like 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, got to drive a couple of hours, so I haven’t really slept.

And I remember just being in a daze of driving a couple of hours, getting to the venue, and I remember being like delirious, like brushing my teeth in the parking lot of the venue where I was getting ready to speak, and just feeling trashed and exhausted, and just feeling like, “You know, this is the glamorous life of a speaker.” So, yeah, a few of those type of war stories have happened a few times.

Pete Mockaitis
But, if I may, I got to push for the ending. How did the speech go? And what did the clients say? And did you collect your money?

Grant Baldwin
It went well. It went well. In fact, I was supposed to give two talks, and there was something of a break in between, and so I asked, I said, “Hey, if it’s okay I need to go back to the hotel and just zonk for a little bit, and then for the second talk I’m going to be in much better shape,” and they generously let me do that, and it went great. Yeah, it went fine. It worked out well.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Heroics when it comes to the toothbrushing in the parking lot? It reminds me once I was doing some consulting and we were eating cereal from a vending machine out of a Styrofoam cup with a plastic spork while wearing a hairnet in a cookie factory, I’m like, “This is the glamorous life.”

Grant Baldwin
This is the life. Exactly. This is the part that nobody gets to see.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Okay. So that’s yours. You said you had one of the clients too.

Grant Baldwin
Yes. This wasn’t a client but a friend of mine, but they’re speaking at something and they go to check in at the hotel, and I guess there was some type of a guy on the hunt, manhunt going on in the area for some criminal for something. So, friend of mine checks into the hotel, and he looks like the dude apparently, whoever this criminal was.

So. gets to his room, a few minutes later the phone rings, and it is the front desk, or, no, excuse me, it’s the police, and they’re like, “Hey, it’s the police and we’re outside your door. You need to come out.” And he’s thinking like, “Yeah, whatever. It’s a joke. Someone is pranking me.” Hangs up the phone. A couple of minutes they call back, and they’re like seriously come at the door, people were banging on the door.

He opens the door, looks down like each end of the hallway is SWAT team, barking dogs, guns drawn, like the works.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes.

Grant Baldwin
And just total case of mistaken identity there, but he’s just like, “I’m traumatized.” So, there’s that side of it, too, which seems much more mentally and emotionally damaging thing than having to brush your teeth in a parking lot.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Thank you. You really delivered on that. I thought, “Okay, I hope we have a good travel story.” And I cannot conceive of a better one.

Grant Baldwin
It’s pretty rough.

Pete Mockaitis
SWAT teams and being surrounded beats, “I was really delayed on a flight, and it was bad.” So, thank you for bringing that. So, now, can you share with us, okay, The Speaker Lab, what’s it all about? What are you trying to do there?

Grant Baldwin
So, I was a full-time speaker for about seven, eight years or so, and a lot in the education space was doing anywhere from 50 to 70 events a year, and had a lot of people who asked me about speaking. A lot of people were intrigued, “Hey, how do I become a speaker? How do I get into this?” And so, we started doing a couple of different online trainings around this subject and topic, and just found there’s a lot of people that teach the art side, the presentation side, “Here’s how you put together a good talk. Here’s how you make a good presentation. Here’s how you put your slides together and all that stuff.” But there wasn’t a lot of people that were teaching the business side.
Yeah, but how do you actually find a gig? How do know how much to charge? How do you know how to take care and work with a client? And so, we started to put together some trainings around that, and that’s a lot of what we do today is we do a free podcast and then we also have various trainings and coaching opportunities, and basically just help people create and build a plan and a step-by-step system for how to consistently find and book speaking engagements.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s cool. Well, so, and I would like to dig into, in fact, the art of speaking itself more so for this conversation as it’s applicable to our audience of professionals employed in various places. So, I guess I’m intrigued to see, when you’re working with folks, what do you see most commonly as the differentiator between someone who is like, “Okay, yeah, they’re decent at speaking,” to, “Oh, I’m looking at a professional here,” when it comes to their delivery? Could you sort of paint that picture for what makes the difference?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, I think one of the big things that makes a difference, and something that anyone could do, is a lot of it comes down to the preparation and the practice or the rehearsal that they put into it. And I think oftentimes there’s this misconception that the best speakers in the world just get up on stage and they just make it up and they just wing it and shoot from the hip, and it all just naturally comes out, and you’re like, “They’re just naturally good.”

And, yeah, there are some maybe level of natural charisma that some people may have, but at the same time the best speakers on the planet spend an enormous amount of time really going over the material, really learning it, refining it, and practicing it, and rehearsing and preparing so by the time they get up on stage it looks natural, it looks like they’re just making it up, it looks like they’re just winging, when it’s something they’ve really spent a lot of time on.

So, I think that’s an easy thing for anybody in any type of context, whether you want to be a professional speaker or someone who, “I’ve got to give two or three presentations a year in my company or my business or some type of local organization or civic group,” just spending the time to really work on your material and to practice it and go over it makes a huge, huge difference.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. Now, what comes to mind for me is a comedian. They make it look so natural, “Oh, they’re so funny. They just have all these jokes that are great.” But behind the scenes they’ve been testing them and used many jokes that didn’t work and bombed and embarrassed themselves at smaller venues. And so there it is, the practice and the rehearsals happening behind the scenes.

So, I know the number is going to vary wildly but maybe just if you imagine a context in which, “Hey, we’ve got this professional who has maybe a 30-minute chunk of an important presentation to be delivered in a conference room maybe to a combined set of stakeholders from some executives to some partners that the company works with.” Could you maybe lay it out for us, like what is the price of excellence? Is it like for an hour? Or is it 50 hours? Is it 500 hours?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, so one of the things that you touched on there is some of it depends on the stakes and the context of the setting, meaning that, let’s say, for example, you’ve got to give a 30-minute talk to some friends and it’s kind of a casual type of setting. Yeah, you’re probably going to spend less time on it versus like you’re pitching some type of business or idea or opportunity, and this is like make or break for your career, you’re probably going to spend a lot more time on it.

So, I don’t know that there’s necessarily a right or wrong answer, but typically the higher the stake the more time you’re going to put into it. So, I can kind of walk you through, this will be helpful, like how I would go about preparing for something like that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, let’s hear it.

Grant Baldwin
The bigger the stakes for the type of event, I typically start with, well, I’ll do a couple just for some more context. If I’m speaking at something, I typically want to use material that I’ve given before, that I’ve used before, that I’ve told before that I know that work. Let’s say, for this context, like someone has never given a talk before, they have nothing to pull from. In that setting you want to be really, really clear about what’s the point of the presentation, what’s the point of the talk, what’s the main idea that you want to get to.

So, there may be talks that we’ve all sat through and listened through that you’re just kind of be, “Yeah, it’s interesting or it’s good or entertaining or whatever,” but like, “I’m not really sure what the point of it was and I’m not really sure where this was going.” So, are you trying to get someone to take action? Are you trying to convince someone? Are you trying to persuade someone? Are you trying to inspire or motivate or encourage? Like, what’s the point of the talk? So, being clear on that.

From there you can kind of reverse-engineer or work backwards. So, what I would do is once you kind of have that main idea is then you can just kind of brainstorm and come up with anything related to that idea. So, maybe it’s a story, maybe it’s a stat, maybe it’s an image, maybe it’s a video, maybe it’s a point, a principle, a quote, just anything you can think of, no filter, just brainstorming anything you can think of related to that topic.

From there you can start to put together a bit of a skeleton outline of, “All right. If I’m going to make this key point, then what’s like the natural progression that I need to follow in order to take the audience to that place?” And then you can kind of put together an outline and kind of fill in some of the meat from there. So, what I would do, personally, is I like to manuscript it out, and I manuscript it not from the standpoint of, “Hey, I need to have a script that I’m going to remember and memorize word for word.” That’s not the point of it.

The point of it, though, is I really want to take the time to get like all the thoughts down on paper to make sure that it all naturally flows well together. So, Pete, if you were to ask me, “Tell me about whenever you proposed to your wife.” Like I can tell you that story off the top of my head because I lived it. But I bet if I sat down and really took some time to, “Okay, let me think about the day, let me think about the weather, the context, what happened, who did we call, who did we talk to, what happened next, how did we respond, how did she respond, how did I respond.” All the details of it, my guess would be a much, much better, more compelling, more interesting and engaging story.

And so that’s kind of the point is you’re really just trying to like get down on paper everything related to that topic, the point, the story, where you’re going with it so that by the time you’re ready to tell it there is more structure, there is more meat to it. And whenever I’m working on, in terms of practicing and rehearsing and going over it, I’m not trying to go over from the standpoint of, “Here’s a script that I have to memorize, that I have to know word for word.” I want to make sure that I understand the gist of it, the idea of it, the essence of it of where I’m going with the presentation and with the talk, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be this word-for-word script that I’m trying to memorize.

So, if you’re in front of an audience and you are singing some popular song or the national anthem, and you screw up the lyrics, like everybody knows it. But if you’re giving a talk or presentation, and like, “Oh, I forgot my line,” or, “I told the story out of order,” the audience has no idea, like it makes no impact, it makes no difference to them.

So, you’re not trying to memorize a script where you’re like, “I need to know every single word of what I’m saying,” and it becomes this robotic regurgitation of words, but I just need to know where I’m going, and I need to know how I want to tell this story or make this point so that the talk is much more prepared and practiced or rehearsed rather than just getting up and winging it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, when you say manuscripts, so then you’re saying that, in fact, you are writing every word but you’re not worried about saying every word. Is that fair?

Grant Baldwin
Correct. Exactly. Yup, so I would type, and I think, I mean, everybody’s different but I think, for a lot of us, we write or we type the way we would speak. So, I’m trying to, as I’m typing something out, I’m typing it out like thinking through, like, “How would I actually say this? If I’m standing in front of an audience, how would I actually be communicating it and making sure that I’m writing it in that way?”

Now, again, it’s not from the standpoint of, “This is exactly how I must say this.” Now, there’s going to be a couple key things, maybe a key point or a real main idea that you’re like, “These are the 10 words in this order, and I need to say it this way because, hmm, that works.”

Pete Mockaitis
“Ask not what you can do…” Oh, listen up already.

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, you got to know that stuff but for the most part, most of the pieces within the talk you need to know the idea of it and the essence of it without feeling like, “I need to know verbatim, word for word, how to tell this seven-minute story.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, I dig that. So, you’re actually typing as opposed to recording and transcribing.

Grant Baldwin
Correct. Yup.

Pete Mockaitis
And so that’s just kind of your flavor, and that works for you, and that’s helpful. Thank you. So, what I like there…

Grant Baldwin
Yeah. Well, let’s just say I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to go about either. Like that’s what I do, whereas I know some people who, they prefer to handwrite things out. Like, you mentioned, some people like to transcribe or some people like to have bullet points of an outline, and that’s what they go off of, and they kind of fill in the blanks as they go. And to each their own. I think that the more you speak the more you kind of figure out what makes sense and what works for you and just your preference and your style.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, it’s going to vary how much time it takes, but as you laid it out there it’s like the level of thought you’re giving it is the level of the individual word as opposed to, “Well, I’m going to kind of talk about point one, then point two, then point three. Okay, I’m ready.”

Grant Baldwin
Correct, yup. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, then, it sounds like there’s a wide variation in terms of just how much prep is enough prep. But could you give us, I know numbers are hazardous but I want to hammer home the point that I think is in your head. So, if it’s moderate stakes, 20 minutes of talk and new content, how much prep is like the bare minimum you think a person should invest?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, if you’re doing 20 minutes of content, I mean, from I just found out I’ve got to give 20 minutes to giving the presentation, I’m probably looking at maybe five hours’ worth of just like really… again, it depends on the stakes of it, but anywhere from three to five hours, I would say, because it takes time to really… it’s not like you’re going to sit down and you’re going to type for 20 minutes and it all are going to naturally come out, and then you’re going to go over, time to turn it, it’s ready to go. It just takes time to go over it.

I think, also, the more often you are speaking and the more that you’re generating content, or the more that you’re learning new material, the quicker and more efficient you get at it. The first time you do anything is not nearly going to be as efficient as the time when you do it the hundredth time. So, the more you do something the more comfortable you’re going to start to feel with it as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Perfect. So, I dig that. So, then, that ratio that’s like nine to 15 times or so of prep time to content time, and I think that’s just handy because I’ve been in a position where the team works long and hard on the underlying backend data and the slide creation and locking down the deck just perfectly, and then very little time on, “So, how are we going to say this if we really want to be persuasive or inspiring?”

And so, I think if I could touch upon that for a moment, how does one be all the more persuasive and inspiring? Because, in some ways, I think speeches are easier if your goal is to like, “I’m going to inform them about this. By the end of the speech they will now know about this thing that I’ve told them about.” I think that’s kind of an easier hurdle to clear or goal to hit. But when it comes to like human beings having their hearts stirred and wanting to take action, boy, what’s the secret sauce to making that happen?

Grant Baldwin
Well, I would say this, I think that motivating other people to do something is very, very difficult. Like, at the end of the day, I can’t make someone else do something. So, one thing that I think is very powerful and effective that I think anybody can use is stories, and ideally first-person stories. So, that’s something that I tend to use a lot of whenever I speak is first-person stories, stories that I’ve actually lived.

So, yeah, sure you can tell, “Let me tell you about this story from the 1930s, and here’s this person who overcame this thing, and here’s how it all worked out in the end.” Like that’s great and there’s a place for that but, at the same time, saying, “Here’s something I experienced, something I lived, and something that I did.”

And, you know what, sometimes we think like it has to be some crazy, impactful, like, “I climbed Mt. Everest blind in shorts, and I lived to tell about it.” It doesn’t necessarily have to be that. I think, again, that’s kind of a misconception with speaking is that, “I can’t become a speaker because I haven’t done or overcome some crazy obstacle.”

So, like in my case, I’m a white male from the Midwest who’s had a pretty normal life. Like, on paper there’s no reason I should be a speaker. But the funny thing is you don’t have to overcome some crazy obstacle in order to be a speaker. Just you sharing your own personal experience, or sharing life from and sharing things that you have learned can certainly be valuable to an audience because your audience, most people haven’t climbed Mt. Everest blind in shorts.

Most people are just, they’re normal people going through their daily lives. And hearing someone else is doing it and hearing someone else has overcome something or accomplished something can be extremely impactful for them. So, using stories is really, really, really powerful, and stories can be used in a variety of different ways. But from just motivating and inspiring and connecting with an audience, just as human beings, like we’re really, really drawn to stories, so I highly recommend that as a tool for any speaker.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I like what you said, and earlier we had Dr. Carmen Simon talking about what makes great stories memorable. And often, she said, them being relatable is what trumps being sort of dramatic with regard to their emotions. So, what makes a story good then? It may not need to be super epic tales of Everest, but what sort of separates a great story from an okay story?

Grant Baldwin
Well, I would totally echo the relatable part. So, I’m thinking through several of the stories that I tell on a regular basis. So, stories like the skydiving and just the funny experience that happened with that, or going to Disney World with my daughters and how funny interaction that we had, or as a teenager, toilet papering a friend’s house and getting busted, or my very first car and all the problems that I had with that.

None of these are just like, “Then I met the President and this happened, and then I was on the secret ops mission, and then this happened. And then I won the Olympic gold medal.” So, it’s like this is normal human everyday stuff. Like anytime I tell a story about my first car, anybody in the audience has had a first car and they can relate to it, or something that’s gone wrong.

Even like you mentioned the travel thing at the beginning, is like those are just relatable normal, like human things that we have had, “Oh, let me tell you my travel story. And here’s what happened to me.” Just relatable human stuff that people can connect with. I remember hearing General Colin Powel speak several years ago, and it was great. He was a phenomenal speaker. And I think, at the time, or maybe he had been the Secretary of Defense, I believe, something to that effect.

And so, he’s telling a really cool story about being on Air Force One, and on and on, and you’re just like, “That’s pretty cool, but, like, I’ve never been on the Air Force One and I don’t see that in my future anytime soon.” So, it feels like there’s some level of disconnect, versus like, “Hey, let me tell you about my first car,” and you probably had a similar thing.

Or, “Here’s a funny experience I had with my kids,” and you may have experienced something similar. Or, “Here’s something that happened in a restaurant,” or traveling, or whatever, that is just a relatable type of thing that a high percentage of the audience is going to be like, “Oh, yeah, totally understand that, totally get that, and I’m with you as you’re telling the story.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Yeah, I dig that. Thank you. And so, now, I’m wondering a little bit in terms of thinking about you in the audience of another speaker. It just makes me wonder, given the eye and the ear that you’ve developed by beholding many a presenter, can you share, are there a few things that are sort of like, “Dude, or lady, cut that out. This is an annoying suboptimal habit or thing that presenters do that has just no place and needs to stop”? Are there a few like top pet peeves in the Grant no-no list?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, like one that comes to mind is having a huge dependency on your slides. So, here’s one way to approach it, and I rarely, if ever, use slides. They have a huge value, there’s a huge place for them to be used, and they can provide an impact that your words may not be able to provide. But what often happens to speakers is they are more fixated and focused on the slides than on the audience and the presentation itself.

So, as a good kind of barometer here is, think of it this way. If you’re getting ready to give a presentation with slides, and your slides go down, or they don’t work, or the technology breaks, if that were to happen just five minutes before you’re supposed to speak, can you still be ready? Are you still good to go? Because if you’re someone who is like, “Oh, I can’t even function without my slides,” then you’re not ready, like you shouldn’t be up there speaking.

So, I’ll give you an example. My wife is attending a conference a couple of months ago, and she texted me, and she said, “Hey, I’m in this session that was supposed to start 15 minutes ago, and the slides aren’t working, and the speaker just told the audience they can’t speak without the slides.” I was like, “Then you shouldn’t be up there, you shouldn’t be speaking.”

So, I think just like one of the things I always like to say is that your slide should be an enhancement not a replacement for your talk. They shouldn’t be a crutch. So, if they break, you’d be like, “Oh, that sucks,” but your talk should still stand on its own. It should still be solid. Even the other day I was, a couple of weeks, I was at a conference and I was backstage talking with one of the other speakers. And they were going over their slides, slides, slides, slides, just their whole head was absorbed with the slides. I was like, “Dude, get out of it. Like, forget the slides. You have to connect with the audience.”

Using your slides as a cheat sheet or as a guide, or as knowing where to go, like I get some of that, but you also need to know your material. You need to know where your presentation is going without just having to, “I’m just going to throw up a bunch of bullet points then I’m just going to turn and read.”

I mean, if you’re just going to do that, like what’s the point of you? Just give the audience your outline and leave. There’s no point in you just reading stuff and regurgitating stuff to the audience when they’re fully capable of reading. So, slides are good, use slides but just make sure that they’re an enhancement not a replacement for your talk.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s the top pet peeve that leapt to mind. Any others?

Grant Baldwin
Well, I would say, you speak a lot, I speak a lot. I don’t know about you, but I’m not really overly critical with speakers, in part, because I know most speakers haven’t done as much speaking as you or I may have done, Pete. So, it’s not fair to look at someone and say, “Okay, this is your first presentation so let’s just go through every single thing that you did wrong here.”

I remember speaking at a conference and had a friend of mine who gave me a nice compliment but a humbling compliment. And I spoke at this conference, and it’s like the fourth or fifth year of the conference, and I gave a closing keynote, and it went really, really well. And the client came up afterwards, and said, “You’re the best keynote speaker that we’ve ever had.” And I was like, “That’s awesome. That’s so cool.” Well, most of the keynote speakers they’ve had are people who give a few talks here and there but not to the level that I’ve done in terms of just the number of engagements, right?

So, I told a friend this, I was like, “Dude, check this out. He just said I was the best speaker they’ve ever had.” And he’s like, “You’re a professional speaker. You should be the best that they’ve ever had. If you weren’t you’ve got a problem with that, right?” So, the point being, if this is your first time speaking, like I don’t want to be hypercritical of those who are just getting started or only have done a couple things, but the slides should be one thing, using stories should be another thing.

The other thing I would say, too, going back to what we talked about earlier that I think any speaker at any level can do is really spending the time to practice and go over your material. Again, just don’t get up and wing it, don’t just get up and make stuff up, don’t just shoot from the hip           . Like really spending the time to go through the material, know the material, and it makes a huge, huge difference.

A good exercise to go through with this, or maybe a little homework assignment, is to go on Netflix and look up the documentary called Comedian. Have you seen this before?

Pete Mockaitis
Is this Jerry Seinfeld?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah. It had been a DVD for many, many years. I’ve got the DVD, but actually, like recently, within like literally the past few weeks came out on Netflix. It is a great documentary. And the nutshell of it is basically it was filmed in like, I think, the early 2000s. It was right after the show Seinfeld wrapped up, and it’s following Jerry Seinfeld around as he’s doing his standup comedy.

But, really, he’s working on new material, so it shows him getting up on stage and he’s bombing, or he’s forgetting the punchline, or he’s being heckled. And he’s at the top of his game, like he’s one of the more recognized people in entertainment, and yet, here he is showing like, “I’m trying to work on this craft, these jokes.” It’s not just, “Oh, Jerry Seinfeld is funny,” so he just gets up and talk and it all just works out.

It just shows him behind the scenes of how this comes together. So, you watch a special on Netflix or HBO or Comedy Central or whatever, and you think like, “That just happened.” It just doesn’t work like that. They just spend so much time behind the scenes going over and over and over their material so that they feel confident, they feel comfortable, and they feel prepared when they get up and speak. So, I think a speaker/presenter at any level can spend time practicing and preparing and it makes a huge difference.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, perfect. Thank you. Well, so then, I’m curious to hear, as we kind of transition a bit, of all the suggestions that you have offered a number of times, what do you believe is sort of the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to, over the long term, improving your speaking presentation skills? Like, if there’s one thing you would have people do regularly to get better, what would that thing be?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, I mean, practice would be definitely up there on the list. I think a couple other things that would come to mind would be to get feedback from not just respected people that you know who have a lot of speaking experience who can give you specific feedback, but also from peers and colleagues who may be other speakers as well.

So, getting that feedback, I think makes a big difference. Working with speaking coaches, again, depending on if you’re just like, “Hey, I give one talk a year, and it’s not that big a deal,” it may not be necessary. But if you’re someone where, “Hey, I give a lot of presentations, they’re very high-stakes presentations,” getting that outside feedback from a speaking coach or from a professional speaker who can go through and can really help you on that content of what you’re presenting but also on your presentation style, your presentation skills, can make a huge difference.

Another simple thing that you can do is just recording yourself and watching it back which, for most people, could be brutally painful. But, oftentimes, we can identify things that maybe we wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. So, maybe there’s some type of a filler word that you use regularly, or maybe there’s something you do with your hands, that you’re like, “I didn’t even realize I did that but once I watch it back I see how distracting that is.” Or, “Here’s something every time I tell this story, then this part isn’t funny, and I think it’s funny but now that I’m watching it back, that doesn’t make sense. There’s no flow.”

And you’re kind of just trying to pull this, like have this out-of-body experience where you’re going back and going through the material to figure out like what’s working and what’s not, and just kind of breaking it down in that way. So, recording yourself, going back, reviewing it, watching it is another good exercise that any speaker can do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Grant, tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Grant Baldwin
I don’t know what my favorite things are so I’m excited about that. Let’s get to that.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s do it. Okay. Could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Grant Baldwin
One of my favorites quote I like to share is, “Who you are is more important than what you do.” Meaning, if you’re a great speaker, if you’re a great employee, if you’re a great entrepreneur, if you’re a great fill in the blank, but you drop the ball as a husband, as a wife, as a mother, as a father, if you’re just a shell of a human being, that’s just not worth it. So, that’s one I try to remind myself of regularly, “Who you are is more important than what you do.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Excellent.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Grant Baldwin
Let’s see here. I’m just looking at what I’ve got on my desk here. A lot of times I think it’s kind of depends on your current situation or what you’re chewing on. There’s a book I read recently, or I actually read it a couple of years ago but then was re-reading it recently called Built to Sell. And it’s not necessarily, like, yeah, it’s in the context of if you want to sell your business, but it’s also in the context of trying to build a business that doesn’t depend on you. And so that was a really good one that there’s a lot that could be pulled from.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And, tell me, do you have a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Grant Baldwin
I use Slack constantly with our team, with communicating with others. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s like a modern-day instant messenger tool, and so there’s a lot of different functions and uses to that. But, yes, Slack is something I use super regularly. I also use a tool called Evernote a lot. It’s kind of my digital brain of any ideas or projects or tasks, or any type of thing that just something I want to save I could keep in Evernote. So, yeah, both Slack and Evernote are pretty common ones I use.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a favorite habit that helps you be effective?

Grant Baldwin
One thing that I would say would be very critical would just be exercise. And I know this is something that’s thrown around commonly but you’re only as good as the body that you have, and that you’re taking care of yourself. So, I just regularly exercise. I do a couple of things. So, there’s a strength-training class that I go to three times a week. I think going to an actual class, for me, personally, has made a big difference because there’s kind of a built-in accountability of the peer pressure of being around other people who can encourage you, that can support you.

That, “Man, I don’t want to get out of bed this early but I know that they’re going to be there and they’re going to give me grief if I’m not there, so, all right, I’ll just get up and go even if I’m not feeling like it. Or those guys are pushing harder so I’m going to push a little bit harder.” So, being in a class setting, for me, for my health, has made a big difference.

So, I do that three times a week and then usually several times a week I will do biking. I’ve done that either outside or we recently got a Peloton Bike so I do these indoor spin classes and those things kick your butt too. But, just bottom line, just taking care of yourself doing something makes a big difference to your ability to focus, get stuff done throughout the day.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a particular nugget or piece that you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients, sort of a Grant original that gets them taking notes and saying, “Oh, yeah”?

Grant Baldwin
Well, I would say, like from a speaking standpoint, like if you want to get into like professional speaking, if that’s something you want to do more seriously, then a big thing I would say would be to make sure you’re really, really clear on who you speak to and what you speak about. And I think this is where most speakers have a difficult time is they try to speak to anybody and everybody about everything and anything and nothing all at the same time. But, as counterintuitive as it feels like, the more narrow and focused you are, the easier it is to find and book speaking engagements versus just trying to appeal to anybody and everybody which just doesn’t work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And, Grant, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Grant Baldwin
We’ve got a podcast ourselves over at TheSpeakerLab.com, and if people are interested in learning more about how to find and book paid speaking engagements, we’ve got a free training that people can check out over at FreeSpeakerWorkshop.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Grant Baldwin
Yeah, I would say the big thing would just be to take some small step of action. And I think that that’s even going back to if you’re working on your talk or your presentation, thinking it through the lens of, “What do you want the audience to do as a result of this?” So, taking some small step of action. If you take the time to listen to this podcast, or any podcast, or read an article or a book or a blogpost or whatever, and you don’t do anything different, like what’s the point of that? So, any little nugget of thing that you want to just take and apply and implement, just taking some type of action makes a huge difference.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Awesome. Well, Grant, thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your perspective here. I wish you and The Speaker Lab tons of luck, and success, and gigs, and all the good stuff.

Grant Baldwin
Thanks, Pete. Appreciate you letting me hang out with you, man.