5 Steps to give a powerful talk: Lessons from Speaking at Dreamforce

At Dreamforce 2018, my colleagues and I got the opportunity to present the work of our larger team at a “Salesforce On Salesforce” themed session. It was a great experience speaking at such an amazing platform!

I thought it would be a good idea to share my learnings for others who may also be prepping for similar talks. Hopefully this framework helps you get started, and makes you feel confident and prepared.

Step 1: Figure out “What’s my story?”

Game-changing ideas need a powerful story to explain and simplify complex concepts.

Your story should be tailor made to your audience, and highlight the key takeaways you want people to remember. Think about your personal goal: what do you want to achieve through this talk?

To get started, whiteboard your ideas, or take snapshots of things you want to talk about, else simply jot them down on placeholder slides. Find a method that works for you and helps you kick off the process. This then becomes your template, which helps anchor you as you think of the details.

Getting your story in order early will help immensely with the remaining steps. You can keep coming back to this initial anchoring, to make sure you’re on the right track. As your talk evolves, question if you’re staying true to your stated goals. These sanity-checks can help you make decisions about what words to use and what visuals to present.

Step 2: Work on the visuals

Visual cues help anchor your words as you give your talk. They also help the audience refer back to the main idea, as they hear your speak. For this reason, formal talks are usually accompanied by a presentation, a set of pictures / drawings or maybe even some props.

Ideally, you want to strike the right balance in your visuals, where the audience receives enough information to help them stay anchored, but not too much where they get busy reading.

I personally am a fan of minimalistic visuals because I like people paying attention to my words as I speak.

If your talk is accompanied by a presentation, every slide or frame you present needs roughly an hour of work. You need to make sure you have the right words, pictures, and that they are in sync with your talk track. Beautiful and clean formats are worth the time invested, as they help the audience stay focussed on the main message.

Step 3: Practice your own pitch

Speaking clearly and confidently requires practice — and a lot of it! The first part is to just get comfortable with your words.

When you hear yourself tell the story enough number of times, it gives you the opportunity to fine-tune what you want to say.

If possible, I’d strongly recommend recording yourself as you practice. It’s a different experience to watch yourself talk, as you don’t necessarily notice some things in the moment — even when you practice in front of the mirror.

Step 4: Practice with others

The most fun part of giving a group talk is to practice with your team!

It builds chemistry and helps in projecting a cohesive message.

Bonus: you can time the entire talk and make sure you’re on track with that part as well.

Our team did at least 5 dry runs in the weeks prior to the final session. We timed ourselves and listened to each other talk while evaluating how seamless the transition between the different sections appeared. After repeated sessions, we automatically adapted to each other’s language and got our styles a lot more in sync. By the final dry run, we’d even started referencing points from the different sections, to better tie in our story.

Step 5: Get feedback

This is the most crucial part before a successful talk. Get feedback from everyone who cares enough to make some time to review your talk. Check with them if the visuals make sense, if your story is clear, and if they feel engaged with your content. Ask your team for feedback and provide them an open space to give suggestions. If your audience is going to include people for whom the content has no context, definitely practice in front of others who also have no context about your talk.

You don’t have to agree with every piece of feedback for it to be useful. However, when you hear from a lot of people, themes emerge that direct you on what to improve.

I hope you find these tips useful! Do check out the video and see what our amazing team has been up to. Big thanks my wonderful colleagues Robin, Irina and Rounak for the fun times in preparing for this talk!