Principles

As a speaker, there are a lot of challenges when it comes to finding the balance between accepting opportunities to share your story, and doing things the way that you’re comfortable with. Obviously in order to get a foot in the door you find yourself saying yes to a lot of gigs early on regardless of things like format, timing, topics and price and this is totally fair as a client is essentially taking a punt on what you’re going to provide. But as time goes on and you get more experienced one thing that must grow with you are your set of principles where you can take a stance on what needs are to be met in order for the engagement of your services to be valuable to everyone involved.

I think this is true of people working in a number of different industries but for the purposes of explaining this I want to share an experience of mine at a speaking gig this year.

Recently, I was asked to share my story to the Passports Office at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. So here I have an opportunity where I get to speak to a large number of people in an industry I know my story resonates well with. Things are sounding great until I get to the part of the email where the presentation is being requested to be delivered virtually and this is where I need to consult my principles.

It’s important to note that virtual connections hold an important place in many businesses and they have played a big role in keeping the world going through the challenges of the past couple of years. During this time I have spent a lot of hours presenting to a screen and whilst I appreciate the necessity of technology like this and still use it to have meetings etc. I made a decision at the start of this year that I must have a personal element when I am engaged to speak and I want to explain my reasons for doing this.

The first is to create more enjoyment for myself. Although speaking creates a sense of fear within me, it is something that I truly enjoy and cherish. There’s many reasons for this that are based in purpose that I won’t go into but the ability to stand in front of a group of people, share my story, experience the reactions and connect with those in the audience is amazing. In order to overcome the fear there has to be things that tip the scales in the other direction and the enjoyment is one of the major factors in getting me to stand on stage so if I lose this enjoyment, speaking is likely something I won’t want to continue to do.

The second reason I want to steer away from virtual presentations is I believe it creates better value for clients. I’ve always felt the connection you can make as a speaker in person is invaluable. I mentioned what it’s like to stand on stage and feed off the energy of the audience as a presenter and I think this is a transaction that goes both ways.

With this in mind I wanted to try to negotiate a way that I could still take on this amazing opportunity while adhering to my own principles so I reached out and asked if we could work out an alternative arrangement. We arrived at a place where we could achieve the best of both worlds so I drove to Canberra and presented to a smaller group in person but this was streamed live to staff all over the country.

There’s a couple of things to note here and I do really appreciate the effort from the people at Saxton for helping me communicate my principles while respecting the needs of the client. The reality is this came through as a virtual presentation request because it would not have been possible for the Passports Office to get all of their staff in on place at the same time so I think this case is a great example of what can be achieved when compromises can be respectfully made to achieve a common goal. As a presenter, I remind people that we are more than just a story, we love to meet new people and learn about the business/organisation/thing that we're speaking to.

For this reason I loved meeting everyone from the passports office, learning about how passports are made and getting a history lesson in how they've changed through the years was a really cool experience. With all of that being said I think the best way to finish this is to share the feedback I got from the client which probably speaks more than all of the things I’ve written above.

“It was fantastic to have Brett speak at our event yesterday!

We have had such overwhelmingly positive feedback from all staff around the country, who were inspired and touched by Brett sharing his personal and genuine story.

It was wonderful to have Brett in the room with our executive and support staff to provide a personal touch, and I know this was really appreciated.”