Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies

You’ve packed your presentation with data, insights, and value — but your audience isn’t responding the way you hoped. If you’ve ever looked out and seen glazed-over eyes… or walked off stage and didn’t get the results you wanted, this...

Show Notes

You’ve packed your presentation with data, insights, and value — but your audience isn’t responding the way you hoped.

If you’ve ever looked out and seen glazed-over eyes… or walked off stage and didn’t get the results you wanted, this episode is for you.

As a former software developer and technology strategist who has presented at countless conferences and meetups, I’ve learned what works — and what doesn’t — when it comes to making technical or detail-heavy presentations land with impact.

If you’re in a technical field — technology, software, AI, science, healthcare, academia, finance - this episode is especially for you.

I share 6 key strategies you can use today to make your presentations more engaging, memorable, and actionable — so you not only inform but also inspire your audience.

You’ll learn:

  • 3 quick changes to make in your slide deck (these alone will change how your talk feels)

  • Why your “About Me” slide should never be the first or second slide in your deck — and what to do first instead

  • What your audience wants more than information

  • How to incorporate storytelling so your data sticks

  •  The “palm tree” method for organizing your talk (goodbye, content overload!)

  • The one thing I never do anymore in technical talks — and what I do now (learned the hard way at a Microsoft event years ago)

 

Whether you’re speaking to peers in your industry or to potential clients, you’ll walk away from this episode with practical strategies to improve your next presentation.

Links:

Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/431/ 

Let us give your presentation a makeover! Learn more at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/work-with-us/presentation-makeover/ 

Want to create your talk from scratch? Book a VIP Day or join our Thought Leader Academy: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/work-with-us/coaching/ 

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolcox

Related Podcast Episodes:

 


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What is Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies?

It's time to escape the expert trap and become an in-demand speaker and thought leader through compelling and memorable business presentations, keynotes, workshops, and TEDx talks. If you want to level up your public speaking to get more and better, including paid, speaking engagements, you've come to the right place! Thousands of entrepreneurs and leaders have learned from Speaking Your Brand and now you can too through our episodes that will help you with storytelling, audience engagement, building confidence, handling nerves, pitching to speak, getting paid, and more. Hosted by Carol Cox, entrepreneur, speaker, and TV political analyst. This is your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience.

Carol Cox:
Make sure your tech presentations keep your

audience engaged and not glazed over with my

do's and don'ts on this episode of the

Speaking Your Brand podcast.

More and more women are making an impact by

starting businesses, running for office,

and speaking up for what matters.

With my background as a TV political analyst,

entrepreneur, and speaker,

I interview and coach purpose driven women to

shape their brands, grow their companies,

and become recognized as influencers in their

field. This is speaking your brand,

your place to learn how to persuasively

communicate your message to your audience.

Hi there and welcome to the Speaking Your

Brand podcast. I'm your host,

Carol Cox. If you have a tech centric

presentation coming up,

this episode is for you.

I'm going to share with you what to do and

what not to do, to make sure that your

audience feels engaged,

that they don't feel overwhelmed and that

they know what to do next with the

information that you've shared with them.

Now, earlier in my career,

I was a software developer and a technology

strategist. I found it in ran two tech

companies, so I have presented at a lot of

technology conferences and events.

And now with AI, I'm building some AI apps

for speaking your brand. Stay tuned for that.

But I'm also starting to go to more

technology conferences to talk about that.

So I wanted to share with you the best

practices of what I've learned over the years

and what I'm doing right now,

so that your tech presentations are

successful. And this applies if you're in

technology software.

I also science, healthcare,

academia, anything where you're presenting

kind of data rich information because your

audience doesn't just want more information,

they want to understand why this matters to

them and what to do with it next.

This is how you're going to attract clients.

So if you're doing presentations for lead

generation and brand awareness,

this is how you're actually going to get

leads and clients from your presentations as

well as getting referrals for more speaking

opportunities. And I'll tell you at the end

of this episode, the one thing I never,

ever do in my technical presentations and how

I learned this lesson the hard way years ago.

Now, if you would like to work with us to

make over an existing presentation that you

have that you know is good,

but you need to take it over the line,

you need to get it so that it's actually

generating leads and clients for you or those

other speaking opportunities.

Or maybe you want to create a presentation

from scratch from beginning to end using our

proven framework.

Click on the links in the show notes or go to

speaking your Brand.com under the work with

us. Navigation menu.

Reach out. Schedule a call with us.

We always enjoy talking to podcast listeners.

Let us know what goals you have,

what speaking engagements you have coming up,

and then we can chat about how we can work

together. Now let's get on with the show.

I've sat in the audience for a lot of tech

presentations over the years,

and here's what I see is fundamentally

missing. That will take your presentation

from something where people are kind of

interested in to something that they are

raving about, and that is what's in it for

them. What's in it for the audience?

So often, especially for those of you who are

founding tech companies,

who are creating software or creating AI

apps, you love your product,

you love the app, the software that you've

created, and you can see how beneficial it

will be for your customers and your clients.

But you're a little bit too attached to the

features and the functionality of your

software or your app.

Instead of taking a step back and really

focusing the A presentation on the audience.

What are their goals related to what your

software can help them to do?

What current challenges do they have to reach

those goals? So do they not have time?

Do they not have the right skill set and not

have the right team members? Whatever your

software is going to help them fix?

And then what is the vision that you're going

to paint for them of the better world that

you imagine, not only the better world for

them, for their own selves and their team and

their company, but the better world overall.

Now, I know this sounds very pie in the sky.

You may be thinking, well, I just want to

share my software, my app.

I just want to give them a demo.

But that's not enough.

You really need to pull them in to your

journey, but then also recognize and validate

to them that you understand where they're at

in their journey.

So I'm going to share with you three quick

things you can do right now.

Just open your slide deck and do them.

And then after that I'm going to share with

you three other things to do that are going

to require a bit more thinking,

but that are going to transform your

presentations when you deliver them.

So first, the three quick things to do.

So you can go open your slide deck.

And the first thing to do is right after

you're welcome. Title slide.

So you're welcome. Title slide should have

the title of the presentation,

your name, your contact information,

a QR code to your website or LinkedIn or

wherever you want to send people.

So you have that on the title slide right

after your welcome title slide.

Put a second slide.

That's an audience question.

You want to get the audience engaged right

away. People are looking at their phones or

they're chatting with the person next to

them, or they're kind of milling about.

So when you start your presentation after

you've been introduced,

you want the audience to focus on you kind of

eyes to the front of the room.

You're getting started. So ask the audience a

question right away.

I like to ask a question that gives me a

sense of who is in the room.

So that way I can kind of tailor on the fly

what I'm sharing with them and what I'm

explaining to them.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

A few weeks ago, I delivered two

presentations related to AI,

but to two very different audiences.

The first presentation was for an higher

education conference about how I'm

integrating AI into the business and

marketing classes that I teach.

So the very first question I asked the

audience was, show of hands.

How many of you teach only online?

Okay, so those people raise their hands.

How many of you teach only on campus,

so only in your physical classroom classes.

And then how many of you are hybrid? You

teach both. Okay, so that just kind of gave

me a little bit of a sense of who was in the

room and where they're teaching,

because that's going to impact them. The

examples that I share related to how to

integrate AI. If everyone in the room raised

their hand that they all teach only on

campus, that is going to be very different

than people who also teach online.

So that gave me a sense of who's in the room,

but kind of also let everyone know that the

presentation was starting.

Now, another presentation that I gave

recently was at an AI meetup.

So this was for people who are entrepreneurs,

software developers, people who are curious

about AI. So a broad range of people in the

audience. So the first question I asked them

was show of hands, how do you feel about

ChatGPT? So the first one was,

okay, so I love ChatGPT.

Please do not take it away from me.

I've come to rely on it.

I use it every day like I do not want to give

it up. So how many people in the audience

feel that way? And then the second one was

how many of you are like, well, I use it, but

I can kind of take it or leave it. Okay, show

of hands. And then how many people were like,

I don't really care about AI.

If it went away tomorrow, I could care less.

Okay, show of hands. So I had actually a mix

of all three of those groups when people

raised their hands.

So that kind of gave me a sense,

again, of the broad range of people who were

in the audience.

And then I also then I asked a follow up

question a few minutes later,

which was, if you could automate one thing in

your life or your work,

what would it be? And this was something that

people could answer out loud.

So I would call on people.

If you could automate one thing in your life

or business, what would it be? So people kind

of answer different, different ways.

And that also gave me a sense of who was in

the room. So that's the very first thing

quickly to do. Put a second slide right after

your title slide to ask the audience a

question. The second quick thing to do is

move your about me or about your company.

Slide to slide number three,

4 or 5. It should not be the second slide,

because that's not where the audience

question is. So often when I go to any type

of presentation, whether it's tech focused or

not, the second slide is usually all about

the speaker. There are all their logos or

their credentials, and that is fine.

You want to have those credibility markers,

but you want to move it down a few slides

from the beginning, because you first need to

show to your audience that you understand

where they're at, what they want,

and what's getting in their way.

You need to validate and empathize with them.

You need to build that sense of trust and

connection first, and then they're going to

be more interested in who you are and how you

can help them. So how I tend to do this again

around those slides, three and four is then

I'll either share with them kind of what I

think their goals are,

or even I could ask them questions about

their goals like that.

If you could automate one thing question,

it's similar to that. Or I could ask them

what challenges they're facing related to

whatever their goals happen to be.

So again, I'm kind of getting a sense of

where the audience is at,

and I'm validating that I understand where

they're at. Sometimes I'll also include a

story of my own to to share that.

So then after I do that,

then I'll have my credibility slide with

logos clients I've worked with like fortune

500 companies, credentials,

whatever happens to be appropriate for that

presentation. So that's quick thing number

two move your about me slide to slide number

three 4 or 5. Five.

The third quick thing to do in your slide

deck is at the end of your presentation,

a slide or two before your thank you slide.

So your thank you slide should pretty much be

a duplicate of your title slide.

So you have again your contact information

that QR code, etc..

But then before that you want to add a slide

with next steps.

So something the audience can do.

That's a quick win to help them to build

momentum based on what they just learned from

your presentation.

A lot of times when we're presenting,

we give the audience a whole bunch of

information, but then we leave them to kind

of make sense of what to do next.

Instead, give them 1 or 2 next steps that

they can take, things that maybe only take 15

minutes. Again, you want it to be something

they can do relatively quickly,

because you also want them to keep what you

just shared with them front of mind and keep

working on it.

So give them something that's a quick win.

For an example for me towards the end of my

presentation, I invited the audience to pick

something to automate based on what they just

learned from all these different automation

scenarios that I had shared with them.

I said, pick something to automate and then

go write down the steps like the 5 or 10

steps that would take to automate that thing

that you do all of the time,

and then go start building that in one of

those automation workflow softwares that I

shared with them. So that's an example of a

quick win. Give your audience the next thing

to do. Now let's get into three other things

to do that require a bit more thinking.

But again, are going to take your

presentation from oh okay.

Well that was an interesting piece of

software to wow, I can really see the vision

of this presenter and their company and where

they want to go.

And I'm excited to be a part of it because

that's what you want. You want that energy

and excitement because that's not only going

to get you the leads and the clients,

it's also going to get people talking about

your presentation on social media and getting

you referrals for other speaking engagements.

So the first thing to do here is to make sure

that you're sharing in your presentation your

unique perspective on the topic.

What do you see as possible?

So yes, your audience wants to learn.

So they want to learn about your software or

whatever technology, or if it's in science

and healthcare, they want to learn what

you're sharing. But even more so,

they want to feel like they're a part of

something bigger.

Not just hearing facts and information,

but being invited into a bigger vision.

So invite the audience in.

Show them how smart they are,

not just how smart you are.

And you do that by asking a lot of show of

hands questions along the way,

or by asking short questions that they can

participate in.

You also want to share with them at the

beginning of your presentation,

and then mention it throughout, and then wrap

it up at the end. Is that vision of what you

see as possible. So in that presentation that

I delivered at an AI meetup,

I talked about how AI agents in particular

are going to fundamentally change the nature

of work, the nature of the kind of work that

most of us do.

So I kind of shared this picture of what is

possible, of letting the robots I call AI the

robots, letting the robots do the computer

work so we can do the human work so we can

get back to the human work and let the robots

take care of, like, all the software and all

the data entry and all that kind of stuff.

Yes, it is going to be a big transition,

but again, that vision of what is possible.

So even though I showed specific AI agent

workflows that I'm creating and using and

speaking your brand, but it was still tied to

this bigger perspective,

this angle I have about the fundamental

change that we're seeing in the nature of

work and what that's going to mean.

So that's number one.

What is your unique perspective on the topic?

What do you see as possible?

What's that bigger vision?

The second thing is storytelling.

And if you've been listening to this podcast,

you're not surprised that, of course, that I

would mention storytelling.

Even if you're doing a tech demo,

when you're showing software screenings or

you're showing your app,

or if you're in science and healthcare and

you're showing graphs and data and

statistics, put a human face on it,

your audience is not going to remember all of

those bullet points and those data points,

but they will remember a story that made them

feel something and made them relate it to

something in their own lives.

Stories work so well because they create an

emotional connection.

They make abstract concepts concrete,

and they help people retain and retell your

message. Now, when you're sharing your

stories, you want to be specific.

So use names, places, let people know where

were you? What was going on?

Were you talking to someone else in

particular? Who was that person?

What was at stake? So what was the what were

the emotions going on?

And then what was the lesson or the

transformation from that particular story?

Let me give you an example.

In the healthcare space,

one of our recent Thought Leader Academy

graduates works for a healthcare hospital

system, and when we worked with her on her

signature talk, she wanted to talk about how

the hospital is expanding to to provide more

labor and delivery rooms and NICU beds in

particular. So she shared this really

powerful personal story about her niece,

her niece having been born premature and

needing to be in NICU.

But the only hospital that had NICU available

was like an hour away from from where the

family lived.

She shared that story of what it was like for

her family to have to travel so far when the

little baby was in the NICU,

but now her niece is a teenager in high

school and thriving.

So now I remember that story.

Do I remember any specific graph that she

showed? No. But now I recognize how important

the work that her hospital was doing,

especially around labor and delivery and

NICU. And so now I can relate that story to

you all, which I wouldn't have been able to

to if it hadn't been for her story.

So that's number two is make sure that you're

sharing a story in your presentation.

If you're doing something related to a tech

demo for your software or your app,

talk about what sparked the idea in the first

place to create this, or did you have a

moment in the process of creating it,

where you and your team were kind of like

struggling with something in particular,

and there was that one day,

or that one moment that a lightbulb went off,

or you, you realize a solution for it.

So tell that very specific story of what

happened one moment, one day.

The third thing to do is to Identify your

through line for your presentation and

maintain it the entire way through.

Because I know the temptation is I want to

show this other thing. I got this other chart

to show, and I want to show this part of the

app, and I want to include this little bit of

information. But more isn't always better.

Your job is to guide your audience,

to curate what's the most important things

for them to know, not to kind of like give

them an information dump of everything that's

in your head and try to share it with them in

30 or 45 minutes.

So think about it this way.

Your through line of your presentation is

like a palm tree.

So if you think about a palm tree,

it has one trunk.

So one stable trunk.

And then kind of like leaves at the top.

Your through line is that trunk.

And then and then the branches at the top are

the different things that you're going to

include in your presentation.

If whatever you're including in your

presentation does not directly relate to that

through line, then it needs to go.

Just put it into a parking lot.

Save it for another presentation.

The contrast is an oak tree.

If you think about an oak tree, an oak tree

has several.

An oak tree oftentimes has several trunks.

So sometimes it will have one main trunk

that's growing, but also several other ones

that are rather large.

It has branches upon branches upon branches

and leaves upon leaves.

There's a lot going on with the oak tree,

and that's what you don't want your

presentation to be because it's not focused.

It's not curated.

You want that trunk of a palm tree.

Stay focused on your through line.

So when I was at that I meet up presentation,

my through line was sharing with the audience

how I am creating automation workflows using

AI and AI agents to power my business,

and how I want them to think about how they

can do that for themselves.

So that was my through line. Now I could have

pulled in a bunch of other stuff,

maybe related to AI or related to

productivity improvements in your business,

but that would have just made it way too

confusing. I had to stay focused on here's

how to think about how to use AI,

automation and agents in your business.

Now, maintaining your through line is

probably the hardest thing to do because you

are so close to your own content and you

naturally think all of it is important.

And yes, it is.

But you have to remember,

if you only have 20 minutes or 30 minutes or

45 minutes, what is what is the most useful

information that you can share with your

audience and with a clear beginning,

middle and end? This is why our presentation

makeover package is so popular,

because then we get our eyes on your slide

deck or your outline, and we can see things

that you can't see because we sit in the seat

of the audience. So we're thinking, okay, do

I understand where this is going?

Does this feel like a tangent can.

Can this be left out because it's kind of

muddying the waters.

And now I'm getting confused about what I

just learned. Or maybe there's something that

needs to be added that's not there right now

to make things clear.

So that's why it's really helpful to have

someone else's eyes on your presentation

before you deliver it.

Now here's the bonus.

As promised in the intro,

I said that I was going to share the one

thing I never, ever do in my technical

presentations, and I learned this lesson the

hard way years ago.

And for those of you listening who do tech

demos, you're probably going to relate to

this. I never, ever do now.

Live demos ever.

So live demos, meaning where you're going to

your software app or someone else's software

app, so you're opening the app on your

computer, or you're going to the website on

your browser, and then you want to show in

real time how it works.

So you click here and then you fill this in

and then this goes here,

and then this works.

And what inevitably happens almost every

time, if you've been sitting in the audience

at tech presentations, you've probably seen

this. The demo does not work.

Something happens either the Wi-Fi connection

is not strong enough. So like the page just

spins and spins and it's not working.

Or that software, if it's not your software,

you definitely can't control it. It's down.

It's not working for some reason,

or you can't log in.

Or if it's your own software app,

just something always tends to happen.

It's like the tech gremlins decide that

they're going to have fun, and they're going

to make it so that the live demo does not

work. This happened to me years ago,

early in my career at a Microsoft conference.

We were sharing an app that we had created,

and I was doing a live demo and it just

didn't wasn't working. I think it was

probably the internet connection at the time,

just wasn't strong enough in the conference

room and it just wasn't connecting then.

Of course, I was kind of stuck having just to

explain it instead of showing it.

So here's what I do now is I record the demo

on my computer first.

So using a screen capturing software,

I record the demo. So I'll go through the

different parts, you know, kind of and

oftentimes I'll also speed it up because you

don't want to just like watch something and

sit there and watch it go for 30s while it's

crunching away. So then I'll speed it up,

and then I'll add the video to the slide,

and I'll play the demo at the presentation,

and I narrate over it while I'm presenting.

So I don't, don't record any narration.

What I initially record the demo,

I'll just it's just silent and then I'll

narrate over it live at the presentation to

explain what's going on.

This relieves so much anxiety and nerves

about whether or not something's going to

work. Because I know I have the video,

it is fine. It's also better for the

audience. They're not kind of waiting around

for you to log into something or something's

not connecting. So record the demos,

add those videos to your slide.

Now, if you're doing a workshop or a training

where you are walking the audience through

how to do things in a software,

whether it's your software or someone else's

software, then of course you're going to want

to do it live. But I would still have a

recording of a demo showing it successfully

done so that you can show what it looks like

and then walk through the steps with the

audience. So here's a quick recap.

Add those slides I recommended to the

beginning and end of your deck.

Make sure that you're integrating thought

leadership so your perspective and vision

into your presentation.

Include stories and identify and maintain

your through line.

Think of that palm tree,

not an oak tree.

Think of that palm tree and make sure

everything that you talk about is related to

that. As I mentioned, it can be hard to do

this for yourself. You're too close to your

own material or everything seems important to

you, or it all seems too basic.

Like, doesn't everyone already know this? So

again, we sit in the seat of the audience and

we have worked with hundreds of clients over

the years on every single topic you can

imagine, from nuclear engineering and nuclear

physics to healthcare and science to

leadership, coaching, technology,

finance, pretty much every topic you can

think of. We like to say that we know enough

about pretty much every topic to ask you

intelligent questions,

but we're not so close to your topic or

industry that we can't see the forest for the

trees. If you would like to learn more about

how we can work together,

click on the links in the show notes or go to

Speaking Your Brand.com.

Reach out. Schedule a call with us so we can

chat. Until next time,

thanks for listening.