Q&A with Presentation Wizard Joel Schwartzberg  A few questions from Allison Hemming for the instructor of the recent Academy course “Nail That Presentation!”
How does one get ranked as one of the top ten public speakers overall in the United States?
Way 1: You answer a Village Voice classified ad, pay 25 bucks, and wait for an official certificate on which “ten” is in quotes and “speaking” is misspelled.
Way 2: As a collegiate forensics competitor, you qualify for Nationals in several events, and do well enough in each of them to rank 10th or better overall. It’s like the “all-around” in gymnastics (though the similarities end there).
You won the collegiate National Championship in after-dinner speaking and the Massachusetts State Championship in persuasive speaking. Coming off the Winter Olympics, should we think of after-dinner speaking as the curling of public speaking?
I’m going to say it’s more like the half-pipe. After-dinner speaking involves conveying a serious point through humor, so – like snowboarders – we have to be showy, clever, and charismatic. And some of our neckties were wicked-cool. None of us had a nickname like “The Flying Tomato,” though it’s possible I’ve been called “The Rather Fast-Moving Potato Latke” behind my back.
You’ve coached competitive college public-speaking teams from Penn to Seton Hall and were inducted into the National Forensic Association Hall of Fame for your contributions to the practice of competitive public speaking. How does that translate to your being the best darn presentation coach The Hired Guns Academy has ever seen? (And, “forensics”? Does that have something to do with CSI?)
Most presentation coaches have acting or directing backgrounds. To them, public speaking is just another kind of performance. But I think your best bet is being yourself, and finding your inner confidence, not doing a Tony Robbins impression.
My approach and tactics come from the world of competition, in which you have seven minutes to conceive and deliver a five-point speech on a topic you only received seconds ago. While they didn’t improve my college dating life, those skills have worked wonders for my professional ascension, and I’ve been successful sharing that insight with my students. Basically, who would you rather have teach you how to tear up a half-pipe, Shaun White or some dude who wrote a book about snowboarding?
(Regarding the CSI kind of forensics, I don’t know my way around a dead body, but I can take my sunglasses on and off with panache should it become necessary to do so.)
So … I was a little nervous about adding this class to The Academy lineup. Not because people don’t need it (they do). But because I am quite confident that a huge number of Hired Guns in our creatively-focused network would rather drop trou and sing a duet with the Naked Cowboy in Times Square than give a speech to a room full of strangers. How do you get someone over their primal fear of public speaking?
The truth is, confidence cannot be taught, bought, or transferred. But it can be coaxed (even without the help of ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-al-cohol), and it can even be faked. For starters, knowing what the hell you’re talking about really helps. It also helps to realize that your audience wants you at the very least to simply save them from boredom. The more public speaking you do, the more comfortable it will become, and comfort conveys confidence, so you might as well start right away. I’ll also give extra credit to anyone who takes the course AND sings naked in Times Square.
Do you think that there is a “Dancing with the Stars” meets “Biggest Loser” reality show in your future? Roll with me … how would that competition go down exactly? What paces would you put people through?
It’d be more like “The Apprentice” meets “Shark Tank” meets “Survivor: Midtown”. We could call it “Speak Your Ass Off!” I want to be Simon. Or Ellen.
And if you get a show out of this, you know I’m your Ari Gold, right?
Not if you come down with mercury poisoning when I need you most.
Brass tacks here: after someone takes this class, it’s clear to see that they will give a much better keynote address or be a better participant on a panel. But how does that translate to improved interviewing skills?
An interviewer wants to see the same things a panel audience does: confidence, competence, and strength. Everything else is on your resume anyway. If you can speak before a large audience with power and conviction, you should be able to do the same for a job interview. The main differences are that, during an interview, you don’t need to project your voice, you need to listen as much as you speak, and the topic never changes. It’s always “Why I’m gonna rock your world.”
Closing thoughts … what are the last three things you always do before taking the stage?
Ingest caffeine … check my hair and nose … make sure I’m wearing pants.
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Connect with bloggers who write about the ideas you’re selling, and know that self-promotion is not a crime, so long as you don’t call attention to the fact that you’re calling attention to yourself.
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