One of the most common misconceptions about delivering a great talk is that you need to be a great speaker. That helps, but first, you need to be a great writer.
Here’s our founder, international speaker, and TED coach, Richard Mulholland talking about that point.
This is the #1 stumbling block that we witness.
Them: “Nah, I don’t need help, I’m a confident speaker and I make people laugh.”
Us: “Great, how are you at writing? Got any best sellers or published articles?”
Them: “!?”
Us: “We’re not here to make you great at talking, we’re here to make sure you can write a great talk.”
Structure and format trump delivery almost all the time.
Let’s look at fellow South African startup founder (hey, we’ll take any link we can get) Elon Musk.
Watch the guy, just a few minutes is fine.
Is he a good speaker? No, not at all. Do you want the battery though? Yes.
Is it then a good or bad talk?
See where we’re going here? He made us care early, he created a curiosity bubble that we wanted to pop.
Write the talk first, write it well.
Then worry about delivering it…!