So I'm gonna give you a multimillion dollar tip.
Thank you, I love it. Okay?
All public speaking is
is speaking to one person at a time
in front of many people.
I'll repeat that.
All public speaking is, great public speaking,
is having a one-on-one conversation
with one person at a time-- True, true.
In front of many people.
So you connect, you stay one thought with that person,
you make sure it lands,
then you move on to the next person
that might be at the next table.
At that table.
Then the next section, then the next section.
You don't have to go in a linear way,
but you don't want to do back and forth,
like you're watching a tennis match.
You want that to elegantly glide
and to touch through the room.
But what will have people
be amazing and authentic
and come across as open-- Sincere.
And vulnerable, sincere, genuine, humble,
which, as you know, in Asia, if you're not humble,
no trust, zero trust, yeah?
And I always say, the ultimate credibility
is a balance between your humanity, your humanness,
and your expertise.
And we gotta have both head and heart.
You know, very intellectual decision,
they may not buy if you're doing
a really great technical presentation.
There's just no emotions, there's no emotions.
And it's gotta be delivered with an energy.
Emotion, with passion.
And sometimes people,
sometimes it's not like dramatic, like emotional,
but it's that care
or that intense desire
to help people maximize their time, their business,
maximize their income.
And so if people,
so it's all in the connection.
It's all in your sincerity.
You know, what do you want your audience to feel?
What are their concerns?
Speaking to their concerns.
We could do a whole--
Yeah, understanding the audience, right?
Yeah, asking them,
we could do a whole day of talking
probably about that stuff,
and so then, really show up to serve.
It's not about speaking to sell,
it's about speaking to serve.
And if you come with a heart of service,
people will feel that.
You know, I forget what I'm gonna say so many times.
But if you're connected to the audience,
you look at the right person or you feel,
"You know what, so over there at the back,
"are you with me, do you have any questions so far?"
Yeah, or you can say, another thing,
if you have people that aren't responding,
you can say, "Okay, we've covered a little bit now,
"let's lock that in."
Mr. Lock It.
"Let's lock that in."
"Let's take a moment and lock that in, okay?
"And so what I want you to do is,
"I want you to grab a partner,
"and I want you to share your top takeaways
"in the last 30 minutes."
Then, you could open up,
they've felt, they've already discussed it,
especially in an Asian context,
or if people are--
They want to talk it out.
Are stepping outside their comfort zone,
like I know a lot of the work you do,
I'm sure really requires people
to step outside their comfort zone, right?
So then, after they've had a chance to practice and discuss,
"So, anybody like to share what just came up in your group?"
And then, that then,
you're doing your magic and your mastery and so thing,
there's a lot of ways to engage people.
Sometimes it's just taking the time
to show the audience you're listening, right?
Where, "Hey, any questions?"
And sometimes, "Yeah."
Or if they say, "No."
"Okay, good, do you have any questions?
"Good," and then you move on.
I actually set up my presentations,
even big ones in front of 5,000, 10,000 people,
I'm not joking, it's very dangerous.
You could do it though.
I start off, I do my opening,
and I cover my main issues,
then I talk about the problems that people have,
and then I say, "Okay, now let's focus on you.
"Let's look at your problems."
I give them a whole slide full of,
"These are the problems I've seen mostly with my clients."
So I'm already telling them what their problems are,
which they know anyway.
"Oh yeah, that one's mine, that one's mine."
And so then I open up for questions
in the middle of my keynote.
Now, again, you have to be prepared,
you have to know your content, and look, in our area
of doing what we've been doing for so long,
yes, it's a little bit scary, but it's also fun.
Fun, it's fun, it's fun.
Right, but you have to know your stuff.
There's nothing like it, you have to know your stuff.
Anybody who really knows their stuff can do it.
Yes, yes.
Yeah?
Anybody who's had the thousands
and thousands of hours can do it.
But you have to create the space in your presentation.
And then when you move to a close,
for people who have issues with closes,
they have to practice the close.
They have to work on the mindset behind the close.
They have to get it in.
And there, they should be
at least maybe aiming for a little bit more polish,
so that their insecurities don't come,
so that then they can stay connected to their audience,
they can be focused on serving,
and be focused on, if sometimes,
like I work with, I adore, one of my good friends
and I worked with him for three years,
is T. Harv Eker.
Yes. Yep.
He's the master of selling from the stage.
And you know, he would push people,
he would piss people off,
you know, and he's great at sales,
but he did it for their good, you know?
He did it to be able to help them to take the next step.
One of my dearest, closest, most wonderful friends
that I love dearly is a guy named Blair Singer.
He's in sales.
Blair Singer, yes.
And so Blair is just so--
Phenomenal facilitator.
Oh my gosh, he's just amazing, he's a master.
And so he does that all the time.
You know, so, and again, that's part of,
I mean, I have silver hair to prove it.
(Dan laughs)
You know, that's part of the wisdom
of putting in those decades of experience.
And it takes many masters to make a masterpiece.
Right?
Each person brings a piece.
Like your people can take your piece,
maybe a huge chunk of your piece.
They might need a little piece of my piece.
They might need Charlie Fusco's piece.
They might need Blair Singer's piece.
They might need Harv Eker's piece,
Tony Robbins' piece.
And look, you know what?
If you're a lifelong learner, do it all.
I studied how to be a coach, a facilitator, a trainer,
so that if I'm in front of the room
and I realize I need to put people
in a training exercise to lock it in--
Yes, I love it. (Deborah laughs)
Lock it in.
Yes, that should be my tagline.
(both laugh)
With the Deborah voice.
(Deborah laughs)
On my podcast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and so then you're flipping in there, right?
Yes.
You know, so all you need to do is have,
I'm sure, same thing, a clear goal.
I always reverse engineer everything.
Start with the end in mind.
How do you want your audience to feel?
What stories and case studies
do you need to do there to get there?
When you look at how you want your audience to feel,
that's gonna tell you what words to choose.
That's gonna tell you,
notice now, I have my voice more quiet and more silent.
Yes, yes.
It's gonna tell you that right approach.
So, and we do this naturally
when we're in conversation.
True.
And when I say, well, you know,
when we were having a conversation now,
and we do this naturally when we're with our loved ones
or when we're really having a good time.
And so, but when people get on a stage,
they stop being natural.
Or get in front of a camera.
They stop being natural.
Yes, yes.
And so that's because they're so self-conscious.
And so these tools, I'm always building like a toolkit
or you know, multiple tools
to be able to pull them out when you need them.
So I look at everything as a system.
Like, let's say, for example,
if you are very clear,
a big part of sales is having people imagine
what it would be like to--
You have to create that vision for them, right?
Exactly, so when you create that vision,
you need to be seeing the vision,
and if you're seeing the vision of whatever that is,
whether it's financial freedom--
It's almost your emotions,
your pictures leading your voice (drowned out by talking).
Exactly.
When you're talking in front of a group of people,
then you are reading people.
And here's the real genius about that,
and I know you do this naturally,
and what it is that you do
is that you're gonna feel
what they need to hear.
It's true.
It is very, very true.
'Cause I think as I speak more and more,
this just one day, I kind of developed a sense where,
example, let's say I'm speaking
to a group of 100, round table,
I could sense maybe that table there,
there's some questions.
There's some, I should pause.
I think there's something they want me to address.
It's this like sixth sense.
I don't know how to describe it.
Yeah, yeah, it is.
It's being present with the room
Yes.
And look, if you are,
number one, you have to be comfortable with yourself,
and for people who are not used to speaking a lot in public,
they need to know their material.
There is no way you can get
to that level of awareness with your audience
without knowing what you're saying.
But then, and if you can give up this crazy idea
that you have to be perfect--
And kind of being in control.
Like I want to be precise and controlled, the whole thing.
You need to let go of that thing.
Well, I want to control
all the things that I can control,
like the technology, the microphones,
the time, the system.
I want to control my opening.
I need to stay on time.
And you know, I want to control,
you know, when you go to a close,
it depends on what it is that you're offering
and what that next best step is,
many times, sometimes that close,
the words you say are very, very crucial.
Yes.
So for some people who may not be natural at it,
they have to practice it,
and they have to practice it with that intention.
And again, one of the things that I say all the time,
and in my book, I actually have a book coming out first,
before Million Dollar Voice,
which is called Speak Like a Superstar.
And so, in that book,
I show people how to copy people they love.
So let's say, many people,
you know, you have a whole--
Michael Jackson.
Army of people who love you, right?
Or yeah, if somebody loves Michael Jackson,
the person I use in my book is Martin Luther King,
who had a really powerful message and I deconstruct--
Very powerful voice.
Yeah, but yes.
And I deconstruct,
and his words sounded like what they mean.
And he took long pauses
and he had that Southern Baptist type of style,
which most people don't speak in.
Correct.
But if somebody wants to get better
at landing a message and nailing a message,
they can do,
practice the last three minutes
of Martin Luther King's speech.
Or just take a minute of it.
That's what I did.
That's like, at the time,
I studied like, say, Tony Robbins.
Yeah, exactly.
Les Brown, all these great motivational speakers,
and I tried to imitate them, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And Zig Ziglar.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, those guys are,
I speak with mostly all of 'em, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right, right?
And I tried to imitate.
But then, later on,
once I kind of got a hang of it,
then I know I need to develop my own style, right?
So I kind of learned the basics, the principles,
but then I developed my own style.
Well, that's good, and how you did,
I mean, you did it in a very natural way.
I did the same thing with singing.
Like if you want to find your signature style singing--
You learn to sing.
YouTube six different artists you like,
you master each song,
and then your own style starts to emerge.
So you were very clever to do that.
It's super smart.