A Lesson in Perfection: What I Learned When I Stopped Taking My Own Advice

It’s 4 a.m. and time for sound check. I am sleepily standing on an enormous stage in a large, beautiful room a few hours before I am set to give a presentation.

I was invited to speak at this conference to share insight into the ripple I had made in the archaic automotive industry. I had entered the business young and began using social media to sell vehicles. I stumbled into a strategy that worked well and had ultimately introduced the industry to some long overdue disruption.

This was the largest group I had ever been invited to speak to. Upon accepting this invitation, I began some serious research. I loved TED Talks: I had learned about body language from Amy Cuddy, laughed and nodded alongside Sir Ken Robinson, and been happily inspired by Shawn Achor. I wanted to move this audience as much as some as some of these talks had moved me. So I set out to learn about how to give a perfect speech like the ones I had seen on TED.

Professionals seldom use slides, and if they do, they use very little text.

Tell a story where with a clear protagonist who overcomes an obstacle.

Use body language to enhance the story.

I studied these books, took fierce notes, and spent an amazing amount of time preparing to write the best speech a former car salesperson had ever given.

Once I felt I had completed the research phase, I wrote a long talk complete with all the elements these books insisted I include. My talk had personal anecdotes to keep it interesting, I used specific descriptive language to appeal to my audiences senses, and ended with a strong call to action. Adhering to the apparent rules of a fabulous presentation, I created 26 slides for my talk and only 4 had text on them. If speaker-fairies had leapt from the pages of these books to grade my speech I imagine they would have given it an A+.

All this preparation left a bit less time to rehearse and memorize than I would have liked, but once I had all the elements in place I practiced delivering it with my sister. I even recorded myself practicing my talk and played it while I drove to work, showered, and even slept.

Finally the day came to give my talk. I took the stage and opened with a story, as these books had suggested. I painted the picture of my first few months selling cars and what motivated me to begin using social media to try and win people through the door asking to buy a car from me.

And then, I got stuck. I flipped to the next slide. It was a picture of a car. No text. I was lost. Was it now that I tell the story about the woman who bought a car from me after seeing my YouTube video, or was that later in the talk?

I was overwhelmed by attempting perfect execution of a perfect presentation. I. had. forgotten. what. to. say. next.

I took an excruciatingly long, panicked pause on stage before pushing forward. I disregarded the rest of my carefully scripted talk and poppcorned around to different points I vaguely remembered wanting to include. I attempted to share with the audience what I believed was most important for them to know about using social media to sell cars.

This topic was something I believed in. Using social media and a personal brand is a powerful strategy to create REAL connections with prospective clients. Using video is a beautiful and simple way to create visibility. I had lived this, I was enthusiastic about it, and I was talking to people in an industry I loved who could take similar action.

I clicked along the text-less slides and got to a video I had filmed about putting a supercharger in a truck. Once the video was finished playing I told the audience that it had amassed over 20k views and had been very simply filmed using my iPhone. That’s when I realized that this talk,

it didn’t have to be perfect.

I had wanted to show the audience I was a pristine speaker with a perfectly tailored speech, when I was really an amateur who had clumsily stumbled upon social media sales success.

I may not have had the skills to deliver a TED level talk, but I had a message to share that I truly believed would advance this industry.

The pursuit of the perfect talk is where I had lost myself.

Perfection was not what made my personal brand successful, authenticity was. Janky, zero budget videos shot on my iPhone sharing my excitement over a redesigned model is what had reached hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. I had even built the advice into my manicured speech that authentic content is all that’s needed to create connection.

Although imperfection is what created success for me in the automotive world, when it came to the talk, I hadn’t taken my own advice. I had aimed for perfection and disregarded the raw, authentic attitude and approach that had punctuated my personal brand and made it worthy of sharing in the first place.

My talk wasn’t a complete failure. My genuine enthusiasm for this topic took over once I lost the order and organization of my original script. Although I didn’t deliver a TED level talk that day, many people reached out in the days and weeks following to tell me they took something from my presentation back to their dealership. That, of course, is what is most important.

The reality is that whatever I did using social media worked. I have a YouTube channel that is filled with shaky iPhone videos and I have amassed a following that prefers the authentic, stumbling Laura over a perfectly manicured presenter.

Going forward, I have vowed to remember to practice what I preach. I have committed to disregarding perfection in all of my future talks, blog posts, videos and articles. In the presentations I’ve given since, I have used slides with some text to guide me, been less worried about telling a perfectly structured story, and most importantly, I have remembered that perfection is not what got me to where I am.

Laura Madison
LauraDrives.com