Standing up in front of people and talking about your business
Easy to say, difficult to do. Let’s get into what happened when Layers Studio made their debut doing just that at Design Network North’s microbrewery night.
When James told me we were going to give a talk at this month’s event, my first thought was about how much I hate public speaking but it’ll be okay because there won’t be that many people there and it’ll be okay. I think I muttered, “it’ll be okay”again, before calming down because it was more than a month away.
Three weeks pass and that non-urgent faraway date in the calendar needs attention. We would be talking about our experience of branding Sonnet 43 Brew House’s new range of beers. Our topic to discuss: How do small brewers hold onto their individuality in a highly populated landscape. It was perfect for us; beer and branding are two of the things we love most. Plus, it was a nice opportunity to show off what we can do — so why so difficult?
One factor that didn’t help was with two days to go James gets an email from organiser, Terry, who merrily informs us that he expects 130 people to be there. I hear this and my stomach drops. Now, if you briefly fast forward to the moment when all of those people are in the room (he wasn’t lying, I was sure he was lying!) listening to Terry introduce us, just think about the levels of inner turmoil right there and then.
It was sweaty and uncomfortable…and all the things I hated. But surprisingly afterwards, it felt awesome. Like life was coursing through me, and although I knew that what happened could have gone better I knew that doing this presentation was a great thing, a great experience not to be daunted by and to do again.
Leading up to it and what I’d change
I wrote a script. Four, stapled A4 pages — my life raft. That if it all went Pete Tong, I knew I could lift up those sheets of paper and read until there were no more words on the page. It would be fairly awful if it went down like that, but better than chocking, collapsing vomiting or just running off stage and ran out of town.
From 1,500 words to 800 to 500, three hours before show time James and I went through and hacked away. A couple stand up talk-throughs later and we felt like it was there. Change number one: Don’t rely on a script or clutch and read directly from it. Learn what you can, leave it behind and hit the main points. Get up there and go easy on yourself.
We got to the event early to set up and had a beer to try and settle the nerves. Change number two and three: Don’t drink beforehand and don’t hang around the venue. Stick to the water and go for a walk until there’s only ten minutes to go.
When the time actually came to speak I paced up to the mic. Change number four: Slow it all down and head to your spot nice and easy, try to smile, these people aren’t going to fling their shit at you.
Change number five: If someone else has set up the stage make sure you’re cool with it; get where you stand and the height of the mic right. It’s basics, but if you’re focused on reaching the end before it’s begun these details get missed. I ended up hunched over, almost in front of the screen, struggling to find my level between shout and mumble. Start well if you can!
Change six: I went for lunch with my dad and he told me to keep it light; looking out at the faces that evening, I was no way keeping it light. I agree with dad, keep it light.
Other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing
It’s good to look back on something and even if you’ve haven’t smashed it out the park, you’ve taken a risk, had a rush of adrenaline and introduced a crowd of 130 people to your company and its great work.
Next time, we’ll enjoy it more. And the most important thing is, there will definitely be a next time.
