How to Prepare for a Conference Presentation as a Speaker

Now true confession time . I this is the first time I've ever done this I typically jump straight to the design , because I love Canva . Who doesn't love Canva ? Who doesn't love designing a deck right ?

Like that's the fun part , that's the playground for my creative brain . But if you go , spend all day at the water park , right , and you forget snacks and sunscreen and water , like that's the planning piece of it , one I'm going to burn , like this is just me . If I spend all day at the water park , canva , for me , I'm going to burn . I'm not going to have all the right tools and all the right resources , I'm going to go .

I'm not going to have all the right tools and all the right resources . I'm going to go . I'm not going to have my phone to pay for things , right , because I was going to say cash like this is my millennial in me , when your parents used to like drop you off at somewhere like 20 bucks and they're like here , go , have fun for the whole day . Welcome to the Profit Podcast , where we teach you how to start , launch and market your content with confidence .

I'm your host , crystal Profit , and I'm so excited that you're here . Thanks for hanging out with me today , because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation , this is the show that will help be your time-saving shortcut . So let's get right to it . Shall we to it , shall we ?

Good morning , it is 7.03 on a Saturday morning and I was . I just got the email this week that I was asked to come speak at Podcast Movement 2025 , which is really cool . I've spoken at Podcast Movement in 2021 , was my first time with Buzzsprout .

I shared the stage with some of my Buzzsprout folks , which was so incredible to have like a joint session . That was really fun . And then in I need to go back and get the exact date . It was either in 2022 , 2023 .

I cannot remember right off the top of my head . Again , I haven't had enough coffee this morning , but I spoke at the podcast Movement Evolutions in Las Vegas , which was really cool , like super fun . And then this year I am doing a talk all about tools to help creators avoid burnout , which , if you've been around then you know I love talking about consistency and helping you just get the most out of your content in a way that helps you achieve avoiding burnout , like avoiding stopping your show , shutting down your creator business or all the things that come with that .

So I'm actually in the middle of mapping out my talk and I thought I would show you a little behind the scenes of what I'm doing , because this isn't my first rodeo . I've done this so many times so I know the most important things that I need to do to be successful . So , again , it is July 12 . And this is happening .

I'm looking at their website August 12th through the 21st so just come along with me . It says I have 37 days . I'm actually looking at the website right now . I have 37 days to get this talk figured out , but I think it's plenty of time .

I'm going to really break down more of my different talk pieces , but the most important thing right now for me to do is create the timeline , because it is so helpful to have that accountability for , okay , I need to have the talk outlined , then I need to create the slides . I need to think about the talking points that are going to be super impactful or audience engagement , and then I'm giving myself two weeks to practice , because this is what really helped me last time .

I felt like I gave the best speech of my life last time I was on stage at Podcast Movement and the secret behind that was I practiced every day for two weeks . Yes , every single day . I said the words out loud , it wasn't all in my head and I just felt like as soon as I got off that stage , I freaking nailed it and it was such a great feeling and I know that that was the secret sauce behind it . So I am really excited about this and , yeah , let's go .

Hello and welcome to the 23rd of July . We are officially , let me see , here . I have my timeline . We're four weeks out-ish from Podcast Movement 2025 , so I thought I would give an update on what I've been working on .

I realize it looks like I'm wearing the exact same thing Y'all . This is my like . Do you have , like your morning comfort like sweater ? Or your around the house sweater Like it's ?

It's 617 in the morning , so it's we're early over here , but I thought I would give an update . So what I did is I actually went through all of my talk outline , so I shared behind the scenes of what that looks like and I filled in all the gaps . And something I haven't done before but I'm really excited about is helping Chad , gpt and Claude really amp up what happens in between sections . So these are what you call those transition pieces , because when I think about how can I go from a good speaker to a great speaker this is something I've struggled with Like I know I can deliver a how-to , I know I can give you the three steps to do this , do that and then this other thing .

I know I feel very , do that and then this other thing . I know I feel very , very confident in that . It's those transition pieces where I'm like how do I go from this thing to that thing ? Because I wanted to feel like a really good segue .

I wanted to feel so natural and I wanted to feel like , oh , that was good , right . You've probably seen this too . When you watch someone on stage , you're like that was good , right . You've probably seen this too .

When you watch the one on stage , you're like dang , that was a good connection , or that was like kudos to them . They did an incredible job of just connecting the dots . That's what it comes down to . So I spent so much time with Claude the other day like how can I make this connection clear ?

How can I , you know ? So this is how I'm using AI . If you're wondering , crystal , how are you using AI to help you write speeches and write talks . I'm using my stories , my content , but I'm having ChatGPT or Quad in this instance , that I used exclusively almost for this talk is pulling out those stories .

So I kind of give a prompt of this is what I'm trying to do . This is the type of audience I'm talking to , like , I feed it all the content that it needs to understand who I am as a creator , right , who the audience I'm speaking to is , so that we can talk about pain points , we can talk about specific examples of what they're struggling with , so that I can tell a story of when I struggled with that same thing . So it's really been about pulling out stories and making sure that we have context for the audience .

Because , again , they could go watch a YouTube video on pretty much what I'm presenting , it's true , right ? They could ask , like , what are the three time management tools to avoid podcast burnout ? They could go find probably 500 videos on that , but what's going to make them walk away from this talk and say that was good . I need to go follow her , I need to go sign up for her course , I need to get on her email list , I need to subscribe to her YouTube channel .

Like what is that thing ? For me , it's helping them feel seen , validating what they're going through right now and showing them that there is a better way . So that's really part of the goal for me with this talk . But I'm going to show you behind the scenes of what I actually created so that you can see the really detailed outline that I have and how it's formatted .

So it could be helpful for you . So I thought I would give you some context what I did in Claude first , just so I know that prompting is really helpful when you can see behind the scenes . But I specifically called out and I said you are my public speaking coach , trained by Mac Pacquione , heather Sager and Mel Robbins , using their approach to speaking . Look at my talk outline .

Tell me where I have holes in the message , opportunities to share stories and the places where we might need to cut down , because I only have 30 minutes and I want to have 20 minute talk and 10 minutes for Q&A . Now I realize like that's a lot of information . It was meant to be and it's specifically because I have done this so many times that I don't want to have an hour long talk and then all of a sudden like oh , I only have 30 minutes , how do I cut this down to just 20 ?

So I love how it gave me major holes in my message , story opportunities where I could cut things , and then structural improvement based on the different speaking coaches that I have followed or speeches that I liked , and then you can see I go into like all the story development and everything . But I thought it'd be probably more helpful to show you what my talk actually looks like today . I'm not going to go through and read the whole thing , but this is still my talk outline .

I have not created any of my slides yet . I haven't started working on the deck , not just yet . I'm actually about to start doing that . But you can see here , like I have so many , like this is slide by slide .

Like the gray side on the left , that's meant to be a single slide . This orange here is the transition pieces . So remember , I was telling you like the transition is bigger than some of the slides that I have , but it's something that I really wanted to hone in on . So the blue here is the visual of what I'm going to use .

So when I do sit down to start creating this deck , it's going to be a lot clearer and I put some timestamps over here on the left to really show like , okay , this is how much time you can spend , because , again , have that 20 minute mark . Every piece of this talk is intentional . I'm intentional with the topic , I'm intentional with the timing , I'm intentional with the visuals , I'm intentional with the transitions , like this is the name of the game when you're trying to speak at a level where you're not just winging it and showing up , you're actually doing this from a professional standpoint , and that's where I want to show up for this talk specifically .

So , yeah , I mean , this is the whole thing . It is 11 pages from top to bottom and I'm really excited about the whole thing . So , next steps I'm going to start working on my Canva design and everything that I have there , so stay tuned for more . Okay , now we walked through all of that .

Let me know in the comments what questions do you have about speech writing or , better yet , where do you struggle ? Where do you struggle ? Because I used to struggle with the intro until I realized , oh , that should be the very last thing that I write . It's kind of like writing a book .

I've written two books and I know you don't sit down and start a book , like writing the book with the intro you don't Like . That's usually one of the very last things that you do , because it's so powerful and you need to make sure it's really , really good . So I struggled with intros forever and then I was totally vulnerable at the beginning of this video and told you that I struggle with transitions . So it's what I focused on .

So tell me , where is the piece of a talk that really stumps you and takes you a while to really figure it out or get it going , because we would love to know . So I'm in the middle of preparing for my podcast movement talk and I wanted to share a little bit of behind the scenes , and so what I've done is I've shared a little bit about the planning and creating the script and now I'm to the point of taking the script that I created and turning it into the presentation . Now , true confession time .

I this is the first time I've ever done this . I typically jump straight to the design , because I love Canva . Who doesn't love Canva ? Who doesn't love designing a deck , right ?

Like that's the fun part , that's the playground for my creative brain . But if you go spend all day at the water park , right , and you forget snacks and sunscreen and water , like that's the planning piece of it . One I'm going to burn , like this is just me . If I spend all day at the water park , canva for me , I'm going to burn .

I'm not going to have all the right tools and all the right resources . I'm going to go . I'm not going to have my phone to pay for things , right , because I was going to say cash , like this is my millennial in me , when your parents used to like drop you off at somewhere like 20 bucks and they're like here , go have fun for the whole day . Now I'm like I don't have my watch to pay for things or don't have my phone , like what am I going to do ?

But if I could have just taken a beat , laid out all the things that I need , which is what I'm doing in this planning process , things are just so much easier . Why do we make things so hard ? I'm calling myself out here , right ? I'm not even talking to you or trying to shame you .

I am literally giving myself this pep talk right now . Why have I made things so hard ? Because now , as I sit down to plan this talk , I'm reusing design work that I have worked on really hard or that my designer has previously created for me , and I'm thinking about well , how can I just repurpose this work that's already worked ? I've done so many webinars .

This isn't my first time to talk at Podcast Movement . This will actually be my third . So I have decks that I can reuse or repurpose . So I'm working smarter , not harder .

I'm going through the planning process and being so strategic because I said in an earlier video that the transition piece has been the thing that I really want to take to the next level . Like I want to unlock for this talk and by doing all the planning now and not spending hours and hours on the design . Like I know I can do the design , I'm fine , I'm confident in the design . I need that transition piece .

I need my opening to be incredible . I need my call to action to be amazing . I need my closing thoughts to be memorable . Those are the pieces I need to dial in , not my how-to , not the design , not my stage presence .

Like , yes , those are all things I'm going to consider and work on as I build this talk out , but it's not the most important piece of the puzzle . So I say all this to you , whether you're getting prepared for your first talk , your next talk , your first webinar , your first workshop , whatever it is that you're preparing . I encourage you and we talk about this in the PREPA method to spend more time planning . Spend more time planning because then everything else gets easier .

It does , it all gets easier if you spend just a few more minutes , maybe an extra hour , in the planning stage instead of just diving into what feels fun . So there you go . Well , hey , friends , I'm here for another update . It is officially August 10th and we are let me see how many days .

I always go . Look at my handy dandy wall calendar . So , podcast movement . I'm speaking on the 20th of August , so we have 10 days .

We're 10 days out . I have my deck fully done , like as of yesterday , and it's too long . So it's too long and this will probably be my last update until until we actually do the talk , and then I'll come back and do like a debrief of all the things . But I need to cut this thing down and then practice , practice , practice .

So this is really the secret . I think I already mentioned this , but my last talk at Podcast Movement was so good , like I felt so confident about it , and it's because I practiced for two full weeks every single day , and the two week mark has already lapsed on us doing this every single day for two weeks because I've been trying to refine this . So here's where I'm at . I'm about 10 to 15 minutes over what it should be , I think .

When I was originally planning my content , I was like I could plan for about 30 minutes and then I can shorten it the day of and like kind of like adjust for it . But I am over and I . Here's what I did , like for anyone that's like oh , you know , what do you do ? How do you trim things down ?

I actually went in and I'll put up on the screen . I went into Canva so I put all of my notes in Canva and this is basically my script , and I did an export of all of my slides with the notes , so it has the slide count and the script , and I loaded that into ChatGPT and I was like all right , here we go , this is what I have . How long do you think this would take for me to speak it out loud , knowing my pace of how many words per minute I usually speak ? And it was like oh girl , like you're over , you're over .

You need to , you need to calm down , because this is not going to work . So I asked it like where can I cut some pieces of this and not lose the meat of the message or lose the important , like this is the problem that you're having . Here's the solution or here's the obstacle , here's the challenge and here's how I would take it on if I were in your position . Because , let me remind you , this is the three tools to help you effectively avoid burnout , three tools to help you effectively avoid burnout , and it's all about time management .

So I went through all of these and I'm like gosh , I got to figure out a way to really dial in the pieces that need to be there , versus it's just fluff and it's not adding to the impact of the talk . Because , if there's anything , I've attended so many events where someone's just talking and talking and talking and you're like God , should I have gone to this session ? Should I have gone somewhere else ? Or you start looking at your phone , like this is the worst thing ever is to be on stage and you look out and everyone is just on their phone .

Everyone is just like you're , like you're telling yourself that they're like paying it , not paying attention , they're taking notes , but , come on , they're looking at Instagram , they're checking out their email , like they're they're doing all these other things . So my goal is to keep them captive , hold their attention and really execute a talk where I'm not just rambling on like I'm tying things together , making those transitions , because , remember , I told you in an earlier segment that that was the key for me is , I want to have really good transitions with the content this year .

So I will be sure to update you on how the practicing goes on , how you know , just working through some of these last little pieces of content . One thing that I've been doing is when I go on my walks so I walk like almost daily in my neighborhood and I , because I have Canva on my phone , I will go through the talk . This is my secret I put in my AirPod so it looks like I'm talking to someone , but I'm not . I'm just talking my talk out loud and I look a little less crazy if I have my AirPods in and I'm talking and not just talking to myself .

So there's a little trick of the trade . But yeah , it's definitely coming along . Um , but yeah , it's , it's definitely coming along . I'm gonna spend today really cleaning up some of the pieces that , um , just are those funky transitions , or cutting out some of the content .

So I will absolutely update you on what I end up using in the final version , because what will end up happening is I'll probably even give a version of this talk as a future video , because I mean , I created this thing Like it's . Why would you not repurpose and reuse it in some way ? But I was excited to share the behind the scenes of the creating of this because I think it could really help someone that maybe you're preparing for your next stage talk or your first stage talk and you wanted to see all the behind the scenes .

So I hope that this was helpful . Please let me know what you thought about this and , if you're watching , please leave me a comment and let me know if you're going to podcast movement or , if you've been before , what your experience has been . We have a few other videos about podcast movement that you can go check out the behind the scenes . I'll be recording some content while I'm there .

I have a few friends in the podcast space that are going to be there , so I'm going to see what kind of interviews I can get in person , because those are always super fun , even if they're just really short , quick pieces of advice for you . So I will be sure to update you for my whole experience . But that's it , guys . I got to go practice and make this talk even better than I think it's already going to be , but that's all I have for you .

So make sure you hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you are watching and listening and , as always , remember , keep it up . We all have to start somewhere .