Speaker Coaching

How You Say It

If the words were enough, you could email them to everybody. Or read them out. Or even get a robot to do it for you. People follow people; people inspire people.

Remember your last live concert or performance - you spent the money and went to the event for a reason. For the delivery, the pauses, the atmosphere. Because it was an event, a live event. An alive event.

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.

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.

It’s easier than ever to stand up and speak - it’s harder than ever to speak and stand out.

You have to attract the attention of your audience and then retain it. (My AARFA© 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 - weapon up with a professional speaking 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.

As a speaker coach, I have coached over 300 speakers on the famous red circle of the elite TEDMED and TED family. I have helped thousands of leaders, emerging 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 their phones away, listen to you, absorb what you say and respond to your words... in the way you want.

What is Speaker Coaching

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 evaluates all aspects of your delivery - your pace, pauses, pitch - helping you top reading or flat-lining and start singing.

Quentin Tarantino says that a good film director is in the room by the camera, right in front of the actor or actress, so they are acting solely and only for the director. Effectively, the film director is the most demanding audience, and that’s what I do for my clients. 

When my clients are finally on stage after having prepared and rehearsed with me, “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 easier than the preparation work with me - which is the right way around.

Tough preparation in private, speaking success in public. 

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

Hopping onto the famed red circle of TED and TEDMED is like the dream stage for anyone with a story to tell. But it's also scary. Famous worldwide, 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. TEDMED is curated and prepared to the same 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. TEDx talks are independently organised events operated under license from TED. Exceptional talks from within the TED family are upgraded and displayed on TED.com.  

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

I could give you lists of so many impressive attendees and speakers that I have met over my 6 years as a TEDMED speaker coach ... but here's an overview of just some of the people I have met, shared a drink or meal with or coached at TEDMED: 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 - like the Director of Public Health for NYC - who I met at a TEDMED BBQ. As you do at TEDMED. 

Some claim to know the TED speaker secret, but the experience gained preparing hundreds of people when they are under extreme pressure and helping them be amazing on stage is impossible to research. Everyone on the TEDMED stage is special and an expert - that's the default. But their talks are about to be exposed to health sector experts both in the room and online. TEDMED is live streamed to over 100 countries. The stakes are high.

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. The TEDMED team is easily the least territorial or least 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: it is remarkable. 

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 is their delivery. Making them magic. The final tweaks which add extra horsepower, fine-tune the timing, work on the body language and the facial expressions and the posture, inject "pizzazz", zero in on the key messages and emphasis, smooth out the last-minute jitters. On a film set, film directors work with actors. I work with speakers. Same job. 

My ride as a TEDMED Speaker Coach since 2014 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, racking up millions of views in the millions. They’re more than just good speeches; they’re thought starters, imagination sparkers, industry changers and sometimes, literal lifesavers.

Whether it's for the lights of the TEDMED stage, the green benches of the House of Commons or the intimidating stage at your next AGM, with every client comes a new challenge. I never know who’s going to step through the door and what story they have to tell, what their circumstances or personal challenges are or how their day is going. While I am still actively learning, over the 30+ years I have been preparing speakers for stages, I have been able to assemble a decent tool box of people and speaker-coaching experience which helps me provide a tailored and bespoke solution rather than a predictable copy-and-paste cut-out prescription. 

Maybe I can help you prepare for when you are next on stage? 

How Can I work for You?

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. 

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