Speaking coach and consultant, Lanie Presswood, is our guest for the 161st episode of The Copywriter Club podcast. Lanie coached both of us (Kira and Rob) as we scripted and delivered our presentations at our copywriting event, The Copywriter Club In Real Life. We asked Lanie to join us to talk about public speaking, what to do (and not do) on stage and this long list of other topics we covered:

•  her journey to becoming a public speaker and speaking consultant

•  some of Lanie's early successes

•  the time Rob ruined Hillary Weiss’ presentation at TCCIRL

•  how to deal with stage fright when getting up to speak

•  the best ways to prepare a presentation that an audience wants to see

•  how to “lay out” a presentation to get attention and persuade

•  the 5 parts of a speech: definitions, scope, explanation, description, illustration

•  the biggest mistake presenters make when giving a speech

•  what a speaker can expect from the audience

•  physicality—what to do with your hands and body as you speak

•  things you should never do as a speaker

•  whether you should play a “role” on stage (you don’t have to be Gary V)

•  developing the “skill” of public speaking… no one is born an expert

•  Lanie’s advice to anyone who thinks they don’t have anything to talk about

•  whether or not you should write out your speech ahead of time

•  the difference between video presentations and live presentations

We also asked Lanie about the future of public speaking (a little twist on the question we usually end with). To learn more about how you can use public speaking to grow your authority, click the play button below, or download the episode to your favorite podcast player. Readers scroll down for a full transcript.

 

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Hillary Weiss Presswood

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

The Copywriter Underground

 

Full Transcript:

Rob:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Kira:   You're invited to join the club for episode 161 as we chat with professor, communications expert, and public speaking consultant Lanie Presswood about speaking from the stage, what makes a good presentation, the simple things we can do to communicate more clearly, and how to avoid the worst mistakes speakers make.

Welcome, Lanie.

Lanie:            Hello. Thank you so much for having me here.

Kira:   I feel like this was a long time coming. Especially considering you helped both of us with our presentations at TCC In Real Life this past year. So, we're excited to dig into that and talk more about you and your story. Let's kick it off with your story. How did you end up as a public speaking consultant and professor?

Lanie:            So, I got into competitive speech and debate as a high schooler. And I was very bent on being a journalist at this point in time. I'm about 15, very, very opinionated, have lots of thoughts, and I think I'm going to storm down the doors of a newsroom somewhere in the nebulous future and right away they're going to hire me to just take on big names and bash in some skulls and change the world. This was my vision for myself. So, I knew that to do that I needed to get into a good college and therefore I needed a lot of extracurriculars. But unfortunately, I was really not particularly physically gifted and therefore I was really looking for a lot of things to do that didn't involve me having to go outside and run. I also wanted to get away from the legacy of my older brothers. Two years older than me, and he was very talented and very smart and extremely popular. So, I was really trying to find something to do at that point in my high school career that would just belong ...