I will be shamelessly; unabashedly honest here when I say that I want to be a professional speaker. That is one of the reasons that I got into doing contests, why I go to champ camps, and why I started a blog and revised website. All of these were steps I was taking to get myself prepared to become a professional speaker.
However, I am learning a very valuable lesson and you might be learning it as well. Do you think it is hard to become a professional speaker? Does it take any specific aptitude or Mensa level factual power? No. Then why are there so many Toastmasters sitting in clubs that say they want to be professionals but aren’t?
Sitting in the Champ Camp at this time last week I started to understand, and then it was really driven home last night while watching Last Comic Standing. The difference between Toastmasters and Professional Speakers is that Toastmasters talk way too much.
Now, that was a trick slam. What I mean is that when you are a Toastmaster, there is an expectation that you produce large volumes of speeches from a large number of manuals. While this gives you the experience of a large variety of speaking styles, you start to miss one key thing needed to be a pro, a message.
The message is the one thing that separates professionals from amateurs. The professionals have spent days, months, and years working on one message. This can be one speech, one workshop, or one seminar. What ever the message is, for successful professionals they have spoken, written, studied, and rewritten the same material over and over.
This was demonstrated to me last night while watching Last Comic Standing. In the show, one of the judges asked a contestant, “How much material do you have?”
The response from the contestant, “45 minutes.”
After working on his routine for years, he has only 45 minutes of material. This compares to another professional that told me that he had four speeches that he gave. Another comedian, after 15 years, has just over an hour of material. Now these examples are not from unsuccessful people, but from people that have taken one message, refined it, reworked it, and made it sellable.
That my friends, is why I think it is hard to go from Toastmaster to Professional. What is your opinion?
About the Author: My Toastmasters Blog is written and edited by Chris Elliott, a professional speaker and blogger. Chris serves as a leader for supply chain and international non-profit organizations. He enjoys uses his knowledge and experiences during his speaking engagements, workshops, consulting projects, and one-on-one coaching sessions. The result—connecting people and empowering change. If you would like information on how you can bring Chris to speak to your next meeting, please download Chris' one sheet or contact him by clicking here.
& this goes for training, too. Maybe double. Toastmasters want to talk, talk, talk when they need to get their participants to do, do, do.
Even such training companies such as DDI or Franklin-Covey, which offer off-the-shelf courses, usually employ a small suite of central insights that are used to frame several workshops and seminars. (i.e. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People).
Speaking professionals too have core themes that they repeat whether they are talking about sales, or leadership, or communication, whatever their subject they often return to the same core theme.