Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Talking and telling ain't training or selling. So just getting up in front of an audience and just talking and hoping the audience gets it, I learned quickly that that doesn't work. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.
00:25
Communication and soft skills are crucial in your career growth and leadership development. Whether you're about to speak in public, make presentations at work, pitch to investors or an entrepreneur looking to showcase their innovation to a wider audience, you'd be glad you joined us. The Speaking and Communicating podcast is part of the Be Podcast Network, which is a centralized hub.
00:54
that helps listeners become their best selves at work and in life. To learn more about the Be Podcast Network, go to BeePodcastNetwork.com. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify. Leave us a rating and a review and what you'd like for us to discuss on this podcast that will be beneficial to you. Let's get communicating!
01:27
Now we talk so much about coaching and training and transformation for organizations. And one of the challenges they face is that a lot of the training doesn't stick and everybody goes back to their old ways. My guest today, David Doerrier, the founder of Doerrier Consulting Group is specializing in helping SMEs become great presenters.
01:55
captivate their audiences and leave them feeling connected. David's motto is, talking and telling in training or selling. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Hi, David. Hello, Roberta. Thank you so much. And it's wonderful to be here. I've been following you for a while. And thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of your podcast.
02:23
I appreciate that. Thank you so much for those kind words. Welcome. And it truly is my pleasure to have you here today. And as I said earlier, there's so much coaching going around in organizations, but the reason they call the coach back again, is because they go back to your old ways. But before we get into that, please introduce yourself. Well, thanks so much. Speaking did not come naturally to me. I grew up in Long Island, New York, I was a shy kid.
02:53
If it was up to me, I would have found a cave somewhere and spent the rest of my life in that cave. But the powers that be had some different goals for me in mind. After high school, I joined the Air Force, but I always had a fascination with radio broadcasting. And fast forward a couple of years, and when I was stationed on Guam, I had an opportunity to start working in radio broadcasting. And that led me to...
03:20
being an actor on stage at theater, that led me to the Air Force inviting me to be an instructor, which led me to a 30 year career in training and development. All of these careers put me up in front of people on a pretty regular basis. So I had to figure out how to do this without sweating to death and having just an enormous amount of anxiety because I'm a perfectionist.
03:49
So I had to do it right and I needed to find a way to do it well. A lot of people do say, especially, you know, we're talking about engineers, they're nerds and introverts. Did you have any tools that you used? Did you have a coach to help you overcome being shy or you just thought they putting me in this position, I need to learn to swim. It was pretty much, I need to learn to swim. However, when I first started, well, let me go back to radio broadcasting.
04:19
I didn't realize that being a radio broadcaster was going to put me in front of people. I thought I'd be in my, my little protective little shell in the studio somewhere with a headphones and a microphone. I didn't realize that I would have to do the grand opening of the car lot or the new store that was opening up or what have you. And that put me up in front of people on a regular basis. And I had to learn how to work through that anxiety.
04:48
And one of the things that happened to me was kind of an out of body experience where I was observing myself on stage and saying, where the heck was all of this coming from? So that was kind of the first iteration of starting to work through that anxiety. There's still a lot of work. I'm still shy. I still consider myself shy and introverted. However, one thing that I've learned along the way is that many great actors
05:18
and great orators are shy, introverted people. But you put us on a stage, I am more comfortable on a stage than I am with small talk. As you say, it's almost like an out of body experience. So would you say to someone who thinks I'm shy, I cannot speak in front of people, would you advise them to apply that similar principle? Everybody's going to have a different process that they have to go through. But what I
05:46
folks is that being nervous, having anxiety when it comes to speaking is normal. All speakers, all presenters, all actors, anybody that's getting up in front of people. Roberta's pointing at herself. If you are nervous, then you're normal. And another thing to keep in mind is that when you do get up and speak in front of people, your audience wants you to be successful. The only person in that room.
06:15
that feels that this presentation is going to go bad is probably the speaker. Everybody else in the room feels that this is going to be a success. So keep in mind that being nervous is normal and your audience, they want you to be successful. So those are two things that kind of help with the anxiety. Now in my coaching business, everybody's different. I work with folks to help them work through the anxiety and there's some tips and tricks to do that.
06:44
It certainly is normal. Earlier when I started the podcast, I had a guest who said, Michael Jackson used to be so nervous before every performance. I said, excuse me, who? And then he will do all that amazing dancing. You as nervous before that? But yes, like you said, it's normal. We all feel this butterfly in your stomach nervousness and it shouldn't be a deterrent to you speaking in front of people.
07:14
And then you shared an experience that when you were toastmasters toastmasters has two compartments. You do the speaking and then there are the leadership roles as well. You said you used to avoid the leadership roles. Is there a reason for that? I'm very insecure. I have the imposter syndrome, like many people have. Even when I was in the military, I was very awkward when it came to leadership roles.
07:42
I doubted my abilities. I doubted myself. I felt that there were voices in my head telling me that I was no good. I shouldn't be doing this. That started when I, my first day in radio broadcasting, hearing these voices in my head telling me that I'm stupid, that I'm no good, that I don't have a voice. At that time, I didn't have a voice. I learned how to perfect my voice. And I have a lot of self-doubts. So...
08:09
the reason that I avoided for so long leadership roles in Toastmasters and even leadership roles in corporate was because I doubted my abilities, but that was something else I had to work through. And when it comes to the leadership roles in corporate, which you say if you develop your soft skills, they will come quicker if you are able to communicate better.
08:34
Was that one of the reasons you felt, I'm not sure if I wanna do this leadership role? You know, to tell you the truth, I enjoyed more teaching leadership than being in the leadership role. I did a lot of leadership training over the years that I was in corporate and then a lot of speaking training, helping people within the organization be better trainers. I enjoyed the worker bee stuff more so than...
09:02
being in that leadership role and being stuck behind the desk. So I think that was another reason why I avoided it. And now that you have stepped up and you're currently president of your club, what are some of the things you've learned about yourself by taking on those leadership roles? Well, one was embracing the experienced people around me. Like many Toastmasters clubs, there'll be a variety of
09:31
people that are in the club, people that are new and people that are well seasoned. And to tap into those, not only the well seasoned folks who have been in Toastmasters for a number of years, but also tapping into the creativity of everybody in the club and just knowing that I had their support, that it was okay to make a mistake. Because that's what Toastmasters is all about. It's a safe place to make mistakes.
10:00
your whole club is right there to help boost you up and pick you up. And that's okay, David, we all make mistakes. Let's try it again. Which I think is more or less like you said earlier, but the audiences, they think it's going to go really well. If you think of your audience when they're about to speak as your toast muscles club in the way that they perceive you as an upcoming speaker, it would really help with your mindset and your confidence as well. Yeah, sure.
10:29
So you said they put you in training when you joined the Air Force? Not so much when I joined. I was active duty for 10 years and then I was in the reserves for 18 years and while I was in and the entire time I was in the same career field, air logistics, loading airplanes, passengers, baggage, luggage, food and so on. And when I was in the reserves, I was starting to do some training, informal training within my unit.
10:58
My first sergeant noticed it and said, hey, there's a training opportunity in Marietta, Georgia. Would you like to go and be a trainer? We'll put you on active duty orders for six months, and it'll be your full-time job. And that was in 1995, and that was my first experience with professional training, learning the craft of designing training, delivering training, the different processes, the ISD process, the ADDIE process.
11:28
working with a computer on a daily basis. This was 1995. Back in the nineties, yes. Yeah, working with Word and PowerPoint and so on. Prior to that, I had my radio broadcasting career for 12 years. I did a lot of theater up to that point and continued doing theater. Those are good things to have under your belt, theater and radio broadcasting. However, neither one makes you an expert trainer. There's a lot that I needed to learn.
11:57
and my byline, talking and telling, ain't training or selling. So just getting up in front of an audience and just talking and hoping the audience gets it, I learned quickly that that doesn't work. Yeah, it's almost like a university lecturer. Exactly. And so when they put you in that position, did you receive any training, like from a train the trainer expert or you were put in there and you had to just learn the ropes along the way? Well,
12:25
somewhat learning the ropes along the way. There were a couple of people there that had been there for a while, but like myself, we were all subject matter experts. We were all people that had worked in the career field full-time, active duty or as a reservist. None of us had any training experience under our belt, but the Air Force did send me to two schools to learn the craft of
12:53
facilitation. One was a month long class and the other was a two week class. So I learned some things there and a lot of it was learned on the job. I was just a sponge to want to learn. I didn't know the term at that point, but I learned how to engage my audience. And one of those aha moments came while I was training. A lot of our training was
13:21
50% was done in the classroom and 50% was done on the flight line hands-on working around aircraft and loading them and heavy equipment and so on. And part of the curriculum was designing scenarios of here's the situation, you have an aircraft that's arriving, you have to offload this cargo, you have to upload this other cargo, here's the equipment that you're going to use.
13:49
now go ahead and do it. That's the scenario to this group of students. At first, they would come to me and say, we're confused, we don't know what to do. What should we do next? They're asking me to solve the problem. And at first, I was solving the problem for them. And then at some point, the light went off in my head and said, wait a minute, these guys are all adults. They were people that had been in the service before were coming into the reserves.
14:19
transferring into this career field from the reserve. So these were adults. They're not kids going to basic training for the first time. So I said, wait a minute, you guys need to figure this out. Here's the scenario. Here's the objective. You tell me what you feel needs to happen next. Now, safety was a big part of this. I didn't let them just run amok and start driving equipment around aircraft.
14:44
without really figuring out what they have to do. But I found that that was a big aha moment for me that I needed to challenge my audience because the more that I challenged them, the more things were gonna stick in their heads. That becomes the trainer versus facilitator differentiator. Because the trainer just tells them, he said I was solving the problem for them, but when you facilitate, they...
15:13
embrace their own learning. Exactly, yeah. If they can problem solve it themselves, if they have to search their mind, if they've got to get those juices flowing in their head, that's all going to contribute to helping them to retain that information. Is there anything else also that helps with retaining, as I say, a lot of organizations, their challenges, they do all these trainings that everybody goes back to their old ways? Well, the biggest thing would be
15:42
Another thing I learned many years later in corporate, when I started training trainers to train, was the adult learning theory. Malcolm Knowles, the father of adult learning, he has five principles. In the organization that I was working at, we created eight principles. Having eight principles is no better than having five. They all have the same objective. It's all about processes to help engage your audience.
16:12
and this is at the foundation of my coaching. Okay, so let's talk about these eight principles. Okay, they're in no particular order, but the first one I'll talk about is the principle of primacy and recency, where I'll ask the rhetorical question to the audience. When you think of primacy, what comes to mind? And that is representing firsts, that as humans, we remember impactful
16:42
firsts. So Roberta, you mentioned to me earlier that you grew up in South Africa, correct? Yes. And then that first day of leaving South Africa, do you remember that day? Yes, because all of the emotions, the mixed emotions I was going through at the time, yes, of course. Exactly. But what about if I was to ask, how did you feel on the third day or the fifth day? Could you immediately recall that? Fairly.
17:12
So there's my point that we remember impactful firsts. So when it comes to presenting or training an impactful first would be your opening. So that opening of your training session or your presentation, your speech or keynote, whatever it is, needs to be impactful enough that people are gonna lean in and they're gonna remember it. So there's the principle of primacy, that remembering that impactful first.
17:42
The other half of that is the principle of recency. I think people can almost figure out recency, what that means, thinking that impactful firsts, recency, meaning impactful lasts, or something that is most recent. So if I was to ask you, the last time you went out to dinner, can you remember the last time you went to dinner? What about the third to last time you went to dinner? Can you think of that?
18:11
I'll have to think where we went first. Exactly. That's how much I don't remember. And that's fine. But that's, again, that example of it would take more thinking and maybe really researching to figure out what went on three times ago versus the most recent. So how that relates to speaking or training is that the most recent thing or the conclusion is going to be very impactful. That last thing.
18:40
that your trainees are gonna hear is gonna stick in their mind. So you have to have an impactful opening and an impactful closure. So that's- Privacy and recency. Okay, next one. The next one would be the principle of ownership. This is where your audience is having, needs to take ownership in the learning process or listening. These-
19:08
principles can also be used in a meeting where if I am running the meeting, I need to have an opening or an introduction to this meeting that's going to get everybody in that room that's sitting around that table to take ownership that, yes, this is an important meeting. Yes, we need to participate. Now I understand why I'm here. I understand my purpose in this meeting. These are the participants.
19:38
your audience needs to take ownership. So for example, can you think of in a situation where if your audience doesn't take ownership, what do you feel is going to happen? They're gonna be on their phones. And one of the challenges that most, especially with virtual meetings, research shows that a lot of the employees, if they don't know why they should be at that virtual meeting.
20:06
They don't take ownership, as you say, of that meeting. They barely even look at their cameras. And that's a really good point. That goes back to that principle of primacy, of I call it setting the stage. Why are we here? What are we doing? What's the purpose? Why am I here? Why do I have to stop working and be in this meeting? Is there an agenda to this thing? So having that purpose of setting that stage and making sure we...
20:34
We're all on an equal playing field now. That certainly is part of that principle of ownership of being able to create that opening, create the urgency or the mood in the room where everyone knows why we're here and the value. That's another key point is what is the value of being here? That now I understand that if I sit here to the end of this training, the value is I'm gonna learn X.
21:04
I'm going to be able to do X better. And now I take ownership because yeah, I want to learn it. I want to do a better job. I want to be more efficient as well. Right. Take ownership. And then what's another one? We talked about the principle of ownership. We also talked about the principle of primacy and recency. Another one is the principle of effect. All of this comes from training. And the principle of effect is all
21:33
free from fear as adults. A lot of times what comes up in the emotions for adults when they go back in corporate to be in a training class, many times they bring up emotions of when they were kids in school, of being picked on, or, no, I'm not saying everybody. I know I did. You know, I didn't want to embarrass myself. I didn't want to say something as an adult in the training class.
22:01
that was going to get people in my mind because I was insecure. I didn't want them to start laughing at me or call me stupid. So the principle of effect is all about creating an environment where your learners are free from fear, where the facilitator has created an environment where it's safe. It's safe to experiment. It's safe to be vulnerable. It's safe to ask the stupid question.
22:31
ask the stupid question exactly and not only in training but also in that meeting to feel safe. You know an extreme example of an instructor many times will hear oh there's no stupid questions and then someone asks the question what are you talking about Dave that's the stupidest question I've heard all day you know that's gonna say yeah encouraging people to ask this question because we say when you ask the question everybody's gonna tell her I said yeah me too I was thinking that
23:00
I didn't know that some would say that's a stupid question. Well, you know, I'm giving an extreme example here, but there are all types of presenters out there and I wouldn't put it past one guy. There's always that one guy. I would hope he keeps quiet during those moments, that one guy for sure. And then tell us the next one, David. The next one is principle of relevance. So the more relevant the topic, the more
23:29
interest your audience is going to have, the more relevant the examples, the exercises, the more real world the stories are going to be, the more that it's going to stick. So the more I'll be able to learn this process, learn this software, and be able to immediately apply it because in class we only focused on relevant stories and relevant processes. So the principle of relevance.
23:59
When it comes to storytelling, I had a guest earlier and we were discussing how when you, David, are talking about your experience, whatever principle you're explaining, that's more relatable and more relevant than a case study of Coca-Cola versus Pepsi. Right, right, right. Yeah, certainly, yes. I would agree, unless for some reason everybody in the room is there specifically to learn about the case study
24:28
Coca-Cola and Pepsi. And what would even be more relevant is if I could get my audience, if I was to ask good questions, good probing questions, and to get my audience to reveal some of those case studies. For example, Roberta, you've been a speaker and you've trained people for a number of years to be great speakers. What's one thing that you have found that people struggle with the most?
24:57
People struggle with the voice in their heads that tell them they won't be able to be speakers. Okay, great. So there's an example of instead of me saying that same thing, I'm now getting my audience to chime in and I'm engaging my audience and getting them to create those stories. You know, I could follow that question up. So based on your experience of these people having these
25:25
voices in their head, how did you work with your clients to help them work through some of those voices? Yeah. Some of the things we remind them of is what we said earlier, which is the audience is rooting for you. Nobody sits there and says, Oh, I hope they mess up. I have my phone and camera. I'm going to make them go viral on Twitter. Nobody does that.
25:50
It's to remind them that the voice is just in their head. It's not a real life scenario. Right, right. There's an example of those stories are relevant. It is dealing with our subject, which is public speaking, but it's not me that's telling the story. It's not me that's talking about what has frustrated my clients, the number one thing. I'm getting my audience to do that for me.
26:18
That's another great way to engage the audience. Yes, they come up with the story that they relate to. Yeah. A lot of times you'll be surprised that by going to the audience and asking them questions and getting them to reveal struggles or giving you responses to questions, many times they'll come up with answers that you didn't even think of. Like, wow, that was a good one. I'm writing that one down. I never thought of that one before.
26:47
You've got a classroom full of people that have a varied amount of experiences. They're all coming here with a lot of knowledge. Maybe they don't know everything you know about public speaking, but they know a lot of stuff. So asking them questions, they, I have always been surprised by my audience. Always. I think one thing to highlight there on that point is.
27:12
That means when you're a trainer, you don't come with the idea that you know everything just because you have the material. You are just coming to information dump on them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, information overload. I call it vomiting information to your audience. I think that something you said earlier about the difference between a trainer and a facilitator is that I like to think of myself as a facilitator is taking my audience on a journey.
27:41
I know where we are starting off. And the starting off point is where is my audience right now as far as their current knowledge level of the material? Where are they at? Once I have that understanding, and I know what the destination is, because I know that our objective is that we need to learn public speaking and we need to learn these five things to this level.
28:09
in public speaking, so I know what the destination is. Yes, I have a lesson plan. However, I need to be flexible enough that at times, based on the questions, not to go too far off into left field. Being a facilitator is a workout. I know when my wife first started facilitating workshops, she was doing a lot more talking than facilitating, and then slowly
28:39
it's a workout. It's not, you know, ah, I'm going to be a trainer. It's so easy. It's a workout. So mentally, physically, it's a workout because you got to look at the clock. I got to look at where is my audience knowledge wise, where do I need to be? I need to break for lunch. When we come back from lunch, am I on time? Am I going to reach my objectives? So that's all part of that being that good facilitator. Back to that question part.
29:06
In one of your previous interviews, you said, when it's closing and it's the Q&A session, some of the presenters make the mistake of asking, are there any questions? Oh, yeah. What's the one question a facilitator or a trainer or a speaker should never ask? And that is a closed-ended question. 9.9 times out of 10 when a facilitator or someone asks, are there any questions, 9 times out of 10, there's never a response. There's nothing.
29:37
So the question needs to be an open-ended question. For example, Roberta, what questions do you have about the principle of relevance? A very specific question about that. What was the first thing that we talked about in the adult learning theory? Those types of very specific questions. Now there are times when it is appropriate to ask a closed-ended question. For example, how many people here
30:05
are fearful of speaking in public, or are you fearful of speaking in public? Doing kind of a survey type question of some sort. So there are times when it's appropriate. So yes, it's important to ask questions, but it's important to ask questions the right way. That solicitor responds in some form of engagement. Right, right. Because I'm all about engagement, because the audience is not going to learn anything by just spitting data at them.
30:35
the information overload. Is there any other principle you haven't told us about? Oh yeah, we're only on number five of eight. So principle of readiness. Yes. Principle of readiness is, is the learner ready to learn? There are a lot of things that fall into this. For example, have they completed any prerequisites that are necessary? Have they received all of the information
31:05
where they can, they know how to get to the classroom. They know what's required of them when they get to the classroom. Do they know what the purpose of the training is? Are they ready to learn? Is the classroom set up? Now I'm talking about an in-person classroom, but even in the virtual world, your PowerPoint, if you're the facilitator, is the PowerPoint ready? Has the facilitator learned how to use Zoom? You know, nothing is more frustrating than
31:34
sitting in a class, a virtual classroom where the facilitator can't even figure out how to turn on their microphone, how to share the PowerPoint, just basic things like that. So that's also part of that readiness. Are the participants ready to learn? And it has the facilitator prepared everything in advance that needs to be prepared so there are no hiccups during the training.
32:01
Right, readiness. And let's go to the next one. The next one is the principle of complexity. This is the one that I have found that when I was working with helping folks move into a training role in corporate, this is the one area that they struggled with the most. They struggled with all of these, but they struggled with this one the most, the principle of complexity. I worked with a lot of IT folks that were moving from a development role.
32:30
or a project management role into training. And the principle of complexity has a number of factors to it. One is understanding your audience. Where is your audience right now in their current understanding of the topic? First understanding where is your audience and then meeting your audience where they are at and then slowly bringing your audience with you over to the, I'll call it the deep end of the pool.
32:59
So a lot of times when I'm training this, I'll ask my audience, I'll say, have you ever been in a training, either at corporate or in college or in high school or wherever? And the instructor started right off with very complex information that went right over your head. Have you ever experienced that? And I'll ask you Roberta, have you ever experienced that? Yes, and then the first thing that happens is this, I don't feel like I'm gonna learn anything here. Right.
33:28
Right, right, right. So you start doubting yourself, like, wait a minute, are these other people getting it and I'm not? Am I the only not smart one right now? Exactly, well, that guy over there looks like he's getting it. I'm not getting it. So I call that where the facilitator, they dove into the deep end of the pool. And so now what they've done is they've taken all of their participants with them and they're all drowning at the deep end of the pool. Whereas...
33:55
If the facilitator understood where the participants were in the pool, they would understand that everybody's down there at the shallow end of the pool. There are a couple of people that haven't even put on their swimming trunks yet. They're so far out of the loop. So understand where they are and then slowly bring them with you. The facilitator brings them with them to whatever the destination is.
34:25
So that's the principle of complexity, starting from low and then getting more complex, making things more challenging as you go along, describing the process, demonstrating the process, now giving the students an opportunity to work through the process, either on their own or in small groups. We do like the challenge to figure it out. Yes, we like that.
34:51
But it cannot be, the complex can't be the first thing you start with. Cause that's when you've lost your audience. But if you take us through and then there comes a point in the training where there's something complex that we're going to feel, we like the challenge. It excites us. Yeah. You brought up a really good point. And that is that your audience wants to be challenged. Your adult audience wants to be challenged. They don't want to sit there like lumps. They want to do something. They want to be challenged. If not.
35:20
they're going to end up on their phones, they're going to be searching the internet, they're going to be doing all kinds of things, but they're not going to be listening to you. For sure. The next one is the principle of impact, and this is incorporating stories, analogies, examples, metaphors. It's all about creating that emotional impact on your audience. There's a lot of these that are kind of interchangeable. For example, you want these stories to be relevant.
35:49
the examples to be relevant, the metaphors to be relevant. So that's the principle of impact. And then the last one, I'm gonna demonstrate the last one. So today we talked about the principles of adult learning and we looked at seven principles. Roberta, can you recall just one of the principles we looked at today? Ownership. The great, we looked at the principle of ownership where your audience needs to take ownership. We also looked at.
36:17
Primacy and recency. Primacy means what, Roberta? The first. First and recency? The last. The last, exactly. And when we talk about the principle of effect, we look at the effect of this on our audience. We wanna create an atmosphere that's free from fear. We wanna make it safe for the audience. What about principle of relevance? Why is that important?
36:43
Because if the audience comes up with stories or case studies of what's relevant to them, that's probably going to remember the training, even in a similar situation. Exactly. And then we also looked at the principle of readiness, which is all about making sure the learner is ready or the audience is ready, whether it's a meeting or a keynote speech or what have you. Principle of complexity, what stood out to you with that? Is that the complex idea is not the first thing you start with.
37:13
Right, very good. And then we looked at the principle of impact is we want to create an emotional impact with our audience, which brings me to the eighth and final principle of engagement, and that is the principle of repetition. What I've demonstrated there was we went back through the previous seven, I utilized my audience to help me with that review. Certainly, I could stand up in front of the audience and do the
37:42
the entire review on my own, but the more that I challenge my audience to come up with some of these answers, the more that they have to search their brain, get the juices flowing, the more that it's going to stick in their mind. So the eighth, primacy and recency, principle of ownership, principle of effect, relevance, readiness, complexity, impact, and the principle of repetition.
38:07
And in impact, that emotional part, if you look at how the other principles as well, like when you asked me about my first day going to Korea, it's the emotion that made me remember. That's why we say the storytelling, everything should have to drive, make the audience feel some emotion. Right, right, right. There again is a great example of in primacy, when you're opening your presentation, you're opening your meeting, that there needs to be impact there as well.
38:34
The audience needs to take ownership immediately, but they need to feel why this is important to me. I need to feel why we need to change these processes. So all of these can be incorporated together or separately, these principles. Excellent stuff. The 8 principles of engagement, David Doerrier, what is the one thing I didn't ask you to do that you were really hoping you'd share with our audiences during the show.
39:04
Well, I love doing what I do. I love helping people to be better presenters, to be better speakers, to have a more engaging presentation. Your audience, well, they'll be able to see a picture of me. I've been a professional Santa for 30 years. So I incorporate a lot of things into my training. I've taken improv classes and theater classes and training classes and Santa.
39:31
is a part of my world as well. So all of those things come out in my training. So who better to get presentation skills training from than Santa Claus? Who better indeed? And hopefully you'll be giving us gifts on Christmas Eve. David Doerrier, thank you so much. This has been such an enjoyable conversation, but more than anything, I feel like you engaging me and helping practice these principles.
40:00
A lot of the time when we have interviews, we just talk about the concepts, but it was so good to demonstrate how they work in a relaxed scenario. So I appreciate you for doing that. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for being here. And David, before you go, where can we find you on the web? Oh, great question. You can find me in two places. One is my website, presentyourwaytosuccess.com and on LinkedIn, if you just put in my name, David Doerrier.
40:30
D-O-E-R-R-I-E-R. You won't find another David Doerrier on there. If you do, let me know. But every day, Monday through Friday, I'm posting tips and tricks on how to be a great presenter. For sure. Talking and telling ain't training or selling. David Doerrier, thank you so much for being on our show today. Thank you for joining the Speaking and Communicating podcast once again.
40:59
If you have a guest that you think would be a great fit for the show, please email me and my contact details will be found on the show notes. The Speaking and Communicating podcast is part of the Be Podcast Network, where there are many other podcasts that support you in being a better leader and becoming the change you want to see. To learn more about the Be Podcast Network, go to BePodcastNetwork.com.
41:29
Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify and stay tuned for more episodes to come.