Speaker Coaching

How You Say It

If words were enough, you could email them. Or read the words out loud, or get a robot to do it for you. Can you out-human a machine? A Speaker Coach helps you upgrade your human performance on stage. 

People follow people; people inspire people

Do you remember your last live concert or performance? You spent money and travelled to the event for a reason. For the delivery, the pauses, the atmosphere. Because it was an event, a live event, a living event. An alive event. 

When passion moves you, say what you've got to say and say it hot - D.H.Lawrence

When I first visited Ukraine in 1996, someone told me a leadership quote roughly translated as “I’d follow him over the ramparts.” Nobody (sensible) has ever followed an email over the ramparts.

Attention spans are shrinking 

It's easier than ever to stand up, but it's harder than ever to stand out. 

People huddled around radios to listen to Churchill’s voice and delivery. Churchill had it easy compared to those competing with the mini-screens of today. Watching the Queen give her speech on Christmas Day was a thing. People paid attention.

Now, we all have access to screens and can watch performances anywhere - and we do. Expectations are up, and attention levels are down. Hostage audiences are out; the listening democracy is in. The watch and listen choices are overwhelming. 

How do you get, and keep, attention?

How do you attract, and then retain, your audience's attention? (My MessageCraft®️ process helps with this.) You are in a brutal war for attention, whether on television, stage, or a tiny phone screen.

You are competing with the professionally engineered distractions and professional performers on their handheld screens. Why not weapon up with a professional Speaker Coach?
You cannot expect them to change their behaviour if they’re not listening to you. I help you get them to put down their phones.

What Is a Speaker Coach?

How can a Speaker Coach change your life? 

How You Say It - The Delivery. A Speaker Coach is like a Film Director. 

A Speaker Coach helps you prepare for and improve your performance in speeches, pitches and presentations. A Speaker Coach (SXSW uses the term "performance coach") evaluates all aspects of your delivery - your pace, pauses, pitch - helping you stop reading, end flat-lining and start singing.

Quentin Tarantino says a good film director is in the room by the camera, in front of the actor or actress, so they act only for the director. The film director is the actor's most demanding audience. That is what I do for my clients. 

When my clients are finally on stage, after they have prepared, rehearsed, “enjoyed” and incorporated my feedback, they have the added benefits of their adrenalin and the electricity, buzz and energy from the room. 

My speaker coaching clients often report that the live experience was much easier than the preparation work with me. This is the right way around.

Tough Peter-preparation in private, solo speaking success in public. 

How can a Speaker Coach help you?

A Speaker Coach is your critical friend. The one you can trust. Because they are detached from the politics of your world - their agenda is lifting you so you are amazing on stage. When your Speaker Coach says you are ready for the stage, you are. A Speaker Coach helps you be the best version of you on stage. That sounds like a meme - but it's true. 

Who is your Speaker Coach?

As a Speaker Coach, I have coached over 300 speakers on the famous red circle of the elite TEDMED arm of the TED family - I have also helped people prepare for TEDx talks. I have helped thousands of business leaders and nearly 200 parliamentarians craft, distill and deliver their stories.

Imagine what you could achieve if you could speak in a way that makes your audience put down their phones, really listen to you, absorb what you say and respond to your words... in the way you want.

What is TED?

The TED stage has become the gold standard of public speaking.

Bouncing onto the famed red circle of TED and TEDMED is the dream stage for anyone with a behaviour-changing story to tell. But it's also scary. TED is about spreading "ideas worth spreading", ideas that make you sit up, and take notice. It's unsurprising so many people want to "talk like TED". 

TED is the head of the family. TED has professionally curated and prepared premium quality talks - TED Talks are always worth watching. Exceptional talks from within the TED family are upgraded to TED.

What is TEDMED?

TEDMED is curated and prepared to the same rigorous standard but is the medical and health arm of the TED family. TEDMED is TED for health geeks - attendees and speakers are clinicians, academics, health policy experts and health sector entrepreneurs.

There are tens of thousands of TEDx talks delivered at "independently organised" events operated under license from TED. 

The People of TEDMED

Sitting down for  breakfast, lunch or supper at TEDMED has always been mind-blowing for me. My default assumption is that whoever sits next to me for lunch is smarter than me - and that's just the audience. 

I met so many impressive attendees and speakers during my 6 TEDMED events - both as a TEDMED Speaker Coach, but also socially over a drink or sharing a meal. Smart people trying to do big things. 

There have been White House advisors, Professors and Academics from serious universities around the world working on groundbreaking health issues, the US Army Surgeon General, the US Surgeon General, hospital directors, entrepreneurs of exciting health tech startups and public health professionals.

I was discussing AIDS in Zimbabwe over a BBQ at TEDMED with someone. As you do. Who turned out to be the Director of Public Health for NYC. Who reminded me that in Africa a BBQ is called braai.

The TEDMED team is easily the least territorial or turfy team I have ever worked with - our total focus is getting people on the circular, red carpet and doing whatever it takes for them to be amazing. The buzz of that shared goal - the speaker sharing ideas with the world from the centre of that iconic red circle: WOW.

What Makes a TEDMED Speaker Coach Different?

Some claim to have researched and know the TED speaker secret, but the hundreds of doing-the-job hours experience in the TEDMED green rooms, preparing hundreds of people under extreme pressure, helping them be confident and amazing speakers on stage is impossible to learn watching a screen. 

Everyone on the TEDMED stage is special and an expert - that's the default. But their talks are about to be exposed LIVE to famously demanding health sector experts in the room and online. TEDMED is live streamed to over 100 countries. The personal and professional career stakes are huge.

Some TEDMED speakers have never spoken on stage before. Some academics have never spoken to an audience that can walk out before. Some geeks only speak geek.

I sometimes only have 15 - 20 minutes to prep someone for a TEDMED speech - I have to be effective and fast. The content is usually locked weeks in advance - my job as Speaker Coach is their delivery. Making them magic.

The final tweaks which add extra horsepower, fine-tune timing, work on their body language, facial expressions and posture. Inject "pizzazz" aka "rizz", zero in on key messages and emphasis, calm the head and redirect nerves.  On a film set, film directors work with actors. I work with speakers. Same job.

Being a Speaker Coach at 6 TEDMED events has been wild and a huge learning curve, filled with incredible moments. I have coached over 300 speakers, seen them deliver powerful talks that ripple. 

Many of the talks I’ve helped shape have made their way to the TED stage and are still rippling around the globe, watched by millions of people. They are more than just good speeches; they are thought starters, imagination sparkers, industry changers, and sometimes they save lives.

Why the Experience of a TEDMED Speaker Coach?

I meet people in the green room behind the TEDMED stage, preparing for the green benches of the House of Commons or high stakes Board meetings or AGMs. 

Everyone who comes to me has their unique personal and professional circumstances and challenges. I need to listen and see, then diagnose and prescribe what they need. Fast. No copy and paste solutions.  

I am an active and continual learnerI keep learning and adding to the professional speaker coaching toolbox I have been filling with presentation, storytelling, and speaker tools over the 30+ years I have been preparing speakers for stages. 

Maybe I could help you prepare for when you are next on a big stage? 

How Can I work with You as Your Speaker Coach?

You are short on time - we can deal with that. 

In an ideal world, all your communication is proactive and scheduled, but life isn’t like that. Sometimes, you must react to opportunities or “situations” that need your intervention. 

For proactive or scheduled events, like an AGM or mid-year or annual All Hands/Town Hall communication sessions, we can schedule in time on the weekend at your home or on Zoom - where and when it suits you.

When things happen, and you have to react, a simple WhatsApp message is enough for me to scramble to work with you on whatever has come up in the business that warrants a statement or an intervention from the CEO. 

It always helps if I already know and understand you and your environment and the dynamics around you. Find out more about having a Communications Consigliere works.  

Everything you say must be your words and voice, and be in tune with your marketing and communications teams.