Speaking and Communicating Podcast

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. And by the end of this episode, please remember to subscribe, give a rating and a review.
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Now, most of us think that speaking is something that always comes naturally when we look at our favorite speakers. But my guest today is here to prove that this is a skill not only that can be learned, but it can really improve the quality of your life and of your business. Forrest Tuff is the CEO of One Vision Productions. It's a branding company, and he started in the film industry since 2012, was asked to speak after that.
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and he has been in the speaking business ever since. And before I go any further, please help me welcome Forrest to the show. Good morning. How you doing, Roberta? I'm doing good. How are you, Forrest? Doing great. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being on the show and taking your time to be here. So tell us a little bit about your background. Oh, no problem. Coming out of college, I majored in sport management. I really didn't know what I wanted to do because I played collegiate sports. I actually wanted to...
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make it to the NBA. And I'll be honest with you, I had tunnel vision. Most doctors who go to be doctors don't have a second dream to be a caterer. They're like, hey, I'm gonna be a doctor. And that's how I looked at sports. Unfortunately, due to an injury, that didn't happen. So now I was at a crossroads trying to decide what I wanted to do. Fortunately, throughout my years as a kid and in college, I always had a camcorder. So I was always recording everything that I did. And it was great because I had all these great memories.
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And it just so happened one year, someone asked me, could you record this birthday party? We'll pay you. And at the time I'm working in retail, I'm doing sales, and I'm thinking, yeah, of course this is great. I do this for free, so it'd be great to do this for money. And in 2004, I decided to start a business in media production. Because after that birthday party, I had a bright light. That was my aha moment where I saw I could start a business. And so that was how I got started with One Vision Productions.
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in doing media, multimedia, and also branding for companies as we've evolved over the years. Wow. So you took your passion, you went with it, and then somebody approached you and said, I'm going to pay you for your passion. Yeah. You know, you do enough events, you know, events with your friends. Someone has a great idea to say, hey, could you cover this birthday party and we'll pay you? And that's how it started.
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So what are some of the elements that go into good video? If you produce a good video and you follow this birthday person around and the event itself, what makes the video stand out from the rest, so to speak? You know, it's interesting, at this time I really didn't realize how much communication and branding was a part of it. I just had an eye for capturing things that I thought were memorable. But one of the things I also did is with each client, I always asked them, what is important to you?
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I remember asking about the birthday party. This wasn't formal, I didn't have a layout. I just asked, so what are the things that are really important for you to have on this video? And having that knowledge, I made a list of things that I knew they needed. And so I made sure if I didn't do anything else, I captured those moments. Because if I failed to capture those moments, they might've felt something was missing. But now I realized everything else that I had on top of that,
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made our service above and beyond. So communicating with the person, understanding what they wanted, then giving my extra on top of it, made for a great video that I felt would, I don't know, set us apart in this marketplace for doing video. And that was something that I did off the top that I did not know was so important to the growth of our company.
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It sounds to me like that's the same principle you apply if you're assigned a speaking engagement. You ask questions first. You want me to speak but what is it that you need to? So what are some of the questions you ask up front before you start preparing for a speaking engagement that you've accepted? As far as speaking, I have a list of about 30 or so questions that I have that I send out. Some of those questions will entail what is the theme.
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What is the makeup of the crowd? What do you want them to walk away with? Those are just basic questions. You also ask questions about travel. What is the budget? What are the accommodations that you have? Will this be filmed? Who are the sound people? How is it gonna work with PowerPoints? There are so many different aspects of speaking that you may not consider because you're thinking, hey, I'm just gonna walk up on the stage, deliver and knock it out the park.
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But in order to do that, oftentimes you need to know what it is that they're looking for in a speaker. And also you have to understand what it is you need in order to be effective as a speaker. And some of that will come with time. It will come with patience and understanding and going to different speaking engagements. But I make sure I qualify just as they had the opportunity to qualify me as a speaker to make sure that we're a good fit. And so this is how we can grow and have referrals.
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Right. So talk to us about your branding company, One Vision. We specialize in aerial drone services, video production, graphic design, animation, and we do that for small businesses, government agencies, commercial businesses, and also we work with film studios. For instance, we've worked with organizations like Coca-Cola, 20th Century Fox.
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some of these productions. And we also do like marketing videos and commercials. So what we do in a nutshell is we work with organizations to help push out their brand. If they have a, let's say if they have a pitch, we wanna do set of commercials that's gonna reach this demographic. And here's the message we wanna get across. Then our job is to work with these organizations to look at what they're trying to do and align that with our team so that we can create this product that they can use in mask or use to help.
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brand, whatever they're trying to put out at the time. Speaking of 20th century Fox, did you guys ever suggest to them when it turned to 2000, you say maybe they should change to 21st century Fox? Well, they're actually 20th century studios now. So that may be something that they may consider, but they recently were bought and changed to 20th century studios. So I don't know if they're gonna brand or they wanna use that as their staple, but that's a good idea.
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You may have to shoot that over to them, see how they like it. There you go. Okay. So with the work that you do in your company, what would you say about two or three key points that go into branding, either yourself as a business or your company? Three points that I would give for anyone in business is the first, understand who you are. And that comes with your vision and your mission. That'll give you.
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The long-term of where you're trying to get to, that's the vision, the mission is gonna give you what's the everyday that's gonna get you to that point. So understanding the vision and mission of your company. And that's the first thing. Who are you, what do you stand for? What do you do, where are you going? Secondly, the processes of your business. Now this gets more into the nuts and bolts of how you do your service. How do you go about handling your finances? How do you go about the process of
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understanding your clients. You see, that's the part that helps you to sustain your business, your processes, your accounting, your team management, how you manage people, how you manage resources. And I think the final component is to do the job that you say you're gonna do. Right. At the end of the day, no matter what you say, no matter how great it looks, if you can't get that job done, that's gonna lead to...
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less customers, word of mouth getting out there. You can't get it done. So number one, vision and mission, two, the processes, three, finish the job. Definitely finish the job. Especially when living in an age of reviews on the internet, I can just type first up reviews and people say, oh, you never finished the job. That's right. That is so true. Exactly. That is so true. When you spoke about the list of the questions you asked, the communication you have with the client,
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based on what they need. Where do you think most businesses go wrong when it comes to that in delivering their service? Because they usually come with the, we're experts, this is a superior product, it's gonna change your life, especially in this internet marketing age we live in now. And they usually don't take the time to say, wait a minute, not everybody is this cookie cutter. It's not a one size fits all.
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Where do you think they go wrong with that? And is it because the focus is the bottom line, meaning we get as many clients and as much money as we can? Does your product of delivering for each client individually based on their needs, does it sound a little inefficient? Don't you think, I could be making more money with just, boom, everybody's the same? I think that's gonna differ for each individual. Oftentimes, if you're trying to become an expert at something,
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this process is necessary. When you want to be known for something, there's a process that's necessary to do it. It's not negative to grab those customers and go. I'm not saying don't do that. But you also have to understand there's going to be positives and negatives if you go about it that way. You'll get the money, but you may not fulfill the job. There may be some things that they don't offer that you need, you didn't know. And now you're going to have to take those
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and you're not making the money you thought you were making because now you're having to pay for things that you didn't know you had to pay for. I would advise someone starting off to get the job, close the job. And as you grow your brand and you feel comfortable, start to learn how to maneuver in those spaces to get more quality work. And that's my advice. With that being said, there are some people who are just taking these jobs quickly and it's working for them.
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It's going to vary from person to person. There is no one thing fits all. Some people can move on the fly and make it happen. I know in my business, to be honest with you, that's how I was at first. I just started taking jobs and I was just taking jobs left and right and figuring it out on the fly. Right. There were a lot of mistakes that I made, but I also because customer service was my biggest thing, I also was willing to pay the price if I overlook something. You have to factor that in also.
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So I would advise you, if you're starting a business, look at the pros and cons of going about it each way and just try to make solid decisions, but also be prepared to stand behind your word. Even if you overlook something and you realize, wow, I'm gonna have to pay back $500 that I should have charged them. Stick to your word because you overlooked it. And that's why I say stick by your word, that'll go a long way. What are the two values that your company is ruled by?
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Ethics in business and standing by our work. Those are the two most important components that I will say. And being fair with customers, you know, we let them know upfront, this is what it's gonna cost. Don't shy away from it. But then that also opens the door for conversation. You know, they're like, oh, well, we don't feel we need to pay for this. So, yada yada, that's fine. Now let's have dialogue. Let's have conversation and be transparent. So that transparency is something where they understand your intentions and they don't feel like as if
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you're just trying to get over to make money. Right. Now, when it comes to speaking, you're working on One Vision Productions. Did you decide, okay, now I want to speak or how did you transition into that, adding that career into what you're doing? Being in business, I was often asked to come out and speak to different organizations. At the time around 2015, I started mentoring
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with an organization through the Small Business Administration called Score. And so I was offering pro bono business mentoring for small businesses. That same point in time, I was asked on how to speak. People were asking me, hey, how do I start a speaking business? And at this time, I had been asked to come speak for organizations. And I was also helping others in that space. But the reality was, I didn't have the expertise that I needed to really advise them.
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And I didn't have the true expertise to grow my speaking business. So in 2017, I joined Toastmasters in order to understand more about how to package what I was doing and become a better speaker and communicator. I joined two years prior to that in 2015. Okay. Yes. So what about Toastmasters added to your skillset? Toastmasters added the training to understand how to present.
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Oftentimes, if you don't know how to package material, you can find yourself just all over the place. Right. You think you're giving great information, but it may not be cohesive and audiences may not follow. One of the things that I learned in Toastmasters is how to present and create a talk that they could follow. It's like a journey. You're taking them on a journey because I think I'm a natural storyteller, but how to package that in a way that it's enough for people to receive and take something away.
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That was one of the biggest things for me that Toastmasters helped me with is just packaging my thoughts into talks. Speaking of storytelling, which we emphasize a lot on this podcast, what about stories is so impactful that we always emphasize, hey, don't just present data and statistics and graphs, but tell a story behind the information. Why is that so important?
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If I were to tell you my own words, stories are engaging. I can go back to when we were kids and somebody read us a bedtime story. That feeling of being able to see something that wasn't physically in front of you. That's how impactful a story is. So from a child, you develop this imaginary mindset to be able to see something. You know, I asked my daughter, what do you wanna be when you grow up? And she'll readily tell me a unicorn.
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because I read her these great stories about unicorn. And so she could envision it and it was real. I think what makes it so powerful now as adults is that same concept. When you're telling a story or you're empowering a crowd or you're showing them where you may have failed and gained some experience, oftentimes they can envision that. They may have gone through the same thing or may not, but now they see something that they're like, I can do that.
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And to me, that's where I saw that connection of how impactful storytelling is. It creates a vision of what can be. And that is what humans need. We need the ability to see beyond our realities oftentimes. Yes. And for me, that is why storytelling is so impactful when talking to organizations. It gives them something to pull on and to envision as a goal that they can achieve.
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That is so true. It's the imagination. It's seeing what's possible. And like you said, connecting with the audience. Because I think a lot of speakers, that's what they struggle with. Connecting with audiences and finding ways to engage them and thinking, but this is such brilliant information. Why aren't they just accepting it? You know? Right. I mean, it stands to reason, listen, I'm the expert. I have all this great information. Yeah. How do I have to engage you? You know, that's the way it works. Exactly.
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You spoke earlier of Toastmasters helping you package your message, which it has helped me too because my brain has got a million thoughts going at the same time and it helps you package. They even call it the law of three. At best, obviously circumstances may differ, have about three main ideas to your speech and then work around that. What do you think of that? I think it's amazing. I think even now more so,
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attention span is less. People's attention span is, I want it right now. Give it to me right now, because that's how social media construct has moved our attention span. I think it's important to understand when you're packaging things, how do you engage an audience right off the top? And what can they take away? Oftentimes in a speech, I may use an acronym. For instance, the word run. I'm talking to a film audience. That's research, understudy.
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Network. Now for those who understand the research aspect is what we have to do with anything. For understudy, that works with people who worked in theater and also who in film, you follow someone to learn the business. And networking is another thing that we all must do. But when I tell them you have to run to your dreams, that gives them something, wow, boom, boom, boom. Those are three points that I can stick with. And at the end of the day, we reiterate it. Research, understudy, network, run to your dreams.
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That's something they can remember. So oftentimes those three points can be very impactful when you're doing certain talks, I think, to help people remember concepts. Now it's not to say that that's the only way to make a great speech, but that's a great way to start, in my opinion, and something that Toastmasters has taught us in how to use those points to engage an audience. That's right, yes. We're not saying it's a cookie cutter way of delivering a speech, but, you know,
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you already know your content, your material, your speech. The audience does just overloading them with information. It's the first time they hear this. And therefore just having too much of an overload sometimes can be a little bit too overwhelming for them. So it's good to package it in a way that they can remember, like you said. What are other skills that you learned when you were transitioning to becoming a speaker?
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that you hadn't been aware of before? Toastmasters has many options on how to become better speaker. For instance, they have options on how to interact with media. Not just talking to a crowd, but how do you talk with media? How do you share with media? How do you give a toast at an occasion? At a wedding. Right, so you learn all these different ways because there's so many different aspects of public speaking that I wasn't aware of. When I...
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started, I was thinking, I'm just going to learn how to talk to a crowd, but there are different crowds. And so these skill sets they teach you can show you how to talk to different organizations, different crowds, different types of settings that you might not have known. How do you do an interview on television as opposed to speaking to a crowd? There are so many things that Toastmasters offers. And if you really delve into the programs and you take them to heart,
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and you truly implement them in your personal life or your professional life, you'll really see the benefit. For me, that is what Toastmasters did. It gave me opportunities that I wasn't aware that I needed. That's right. And now that you're speaking, what are some of the things that you've observed and learned in the speaking business? Being in the speaking business, I've learned the first thing is leave the crowd with something to remember.
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I've flubbed on talks before, but I've learned to make sure I interact with that crowd. There's a saying that oftentimes the crowd may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. I do my best to evoke emotion in my talks, to let my story not only just be about me, but also help you to understand what I was going through on that journey.
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Because maybe I can connect with something you felt on your journey. Maybe my failures as I call them Experiences will resonate with you and you'll remember that feeling of like I never thought I could make it I won't make it but then the triumph of overcoming and now starting to feel something So one of the things that I think is most important is I always try to make sure that not only do I have my stuff together I rehearsed I make sure I come prepared for every talk
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but you will have things that will happen that are out of your control. Yeah. But try to make sure that you connect with that audience and make them feel something. I think if they can feel something that resonates with them, then that talk won't be in vain in terms of that information. And that's from my personal experience in how I've delivered. Evoke emotion, which is where storytelling usually shines, because usually the story is what's gonna evoke the emotion.
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Exactly. Behind the idea you're delivering. Like you said, sometimes things happen that are out of your control. Do you lose your mind? Do you go in panic mode and think, wait a minute, I wasn't prepared for this? Yeah. Like if you're talking to an audience and your mic goes out. That's right. Rip that mic off and just go off on the sound team. What are you guys doing? What are you ladies doing? No. Keep your composure. Take your time. Think about it. The crowd is with you. You have to look at it as a captive audience.
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They're feeding off the energy you're giving. Find ways to overcome something. Case in point, if your mic goes out, continue to talk. Just focus on doing what you can do. If that means you have to now walk down off that stage and get into the crowd so that they can hear you, you have to be willing to be pliable when you speak and just try to do things that are gonna, make them have fun. Try to make light of certain situations. Don't take it.
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so serious and the crowd will respond off of the energy that you give out. So there are so many different things that can happen. You just have to either try to prepare for some that you think may happen or be flexible. And that's the thing we have with, there's this thing called table topics. Yes, the two minute impromptu speeches. It teach you how to be impromptu, how to go with the flow or make something happen. These types of exercises help you become a well-rounded speaker in my opinion.
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That's right. Be able to adapt and not lose your mind and think, wait a minute, I'm so prepared. How can this go wrong? I didn't see this. Because when you are lighthearted and you just make light of the situation, like you said, they feed off of that. But I want us to emphasize on the point where you said the audience are rooting for you. Cause I think a lot of people don't know that, especially if they've never spoken before and are afraid of being on stage.
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They don't know that people are rooting for you. Nobody's there to judge and say, oh, I'm gonna see how much forest is gonna mess up today. Nobody thinks like that. Right, they're coming because they heard about this impactful speaker. And it's not like a Toastmasters meeting. In Toastmasters, everyone's rooting for you. When you had an engagement, they may not be rooting for you, but they don't wanna see you fail. No. They're here for positivity. What can you give to uplift them?
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and everything you do can add to that experience. I always say, make sure that the energy you give out to the crowd is something they can feel because that energy, that positivity, one time I started a presentation and I was so ready and my slide would move. My clicker wouldn't, and I remember going, what is wrong with this clicker? And I'm just having a fun at it while they're working on it. And I'm talking to the crowd about, have you ever given a presentation?
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And so many people identified, who's ever had a clicker to go out right when you start a presentation? And they were not focused on my presentation. They were focused on the fact that we're still engaging one another. And it's okay, I'm human, guess what? I'm giving information, but I'm human. I make mistakes. And they were okay. And when it finally came on, almost a minute later, we got right into the presentation, not a beat was lost. It's pre-adaptable, have fun with it. Mm-hmm, because they've also had those experiences and they're just connected on.
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And then one last thing when it took about speaking. So you're a speaker and you want to brand yourself as a speaker. Are there any tips you can give us in order to know how to brand yourself, how to present yourself in a way that they say, oh, we want the speaker to come and speak at our conference. There are a couple of things that I think may be necessary. One, understanding your topics and understanding what audiences you best serve.
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That's one of the things I think as a speaker, you should know, because that's gonna help you with your brand. I've seen some speakers brand themselves in their outfit. So how they dress, they become known as a certain person that either wears this hat or this scarf or wild colors. That may be a way that you can brand yourself. Also having what they call a one sheet. It's a sheet that talks about who you are.
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what you service, and they have testimonials from clients and some of the clients that you serve. That's important when you send out for speaking engagements. It gives them a snapshot of who you are and what you offer. And they can see how that may be beneficial. I would also advise a website that talks about who you are. Somewhere that they can see you, whether it's social media, but as far as professional speaking, I would advise a website where they can go and see you.
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Here's the importance of having a website versus social media. When they go to your website, it's all about what you offer. When they go to social media page, they may see an ad for something that's funny and they can get distracted and click on that ad and leave you. So I think a website is very important to have these material because it gives them opportunity to stay focused on you and what you offer. Because there's information overload and like you said, we have short attention spans,
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have something where they can just focus on you. One last thing, when it comes to the speaking business, do you accept every speaking engagement to get offered? I do not. It depends on the circumstances. And this is why I qualify engagements to understand if it's gonna be a benefit. And I'll give you a case in point so you understand. Someone offers you a beginning speaker and they offer you a thousand dollars to come speak since San Francisco. You're like, wow, okay.
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I'm a new speaker, I get a thousand dollars to come speak, this is amazing. I'll take it. What happens is you didn't qualify the airline ticket. You didn't qualify transportation. You didn't qualify food. You didn't qualify for any type of incidentals that you need. Now you get to this event and after all your expenses, you realize that you only made $200. That's okay, it's nothing wrong with that. But you wanna also make sure that this is gonna be a good fit for you.
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You wanna make sure that the environment is a good environment for you to speak. There's so many different intangibles in understanding that, and that's gonna come with time. But I will say, I'm not leaving money on the table because there's a saying that all money isn't good money, and it just depends on how you wanna structure your business. So for each individual, that's gonna be a personal decision. But in my life, I've not accepted every speaking engagement.
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because not every speaking engagement was a great fit for myself or the people that were running the conference. Do you refer anyone if you don't accept the engagement or you just say, you know what, I'm sorry, I'm not taking this, but good luck. Yes, I have. If I find that a speaker within my network is a better fit for this engagement than I am, once I have that information, I'll contact that speaker, find out if it's something they might be interested in. And if so,
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I'll send the referral to the organizer and say, hey, and once again, it may not be that it's not a great fit. It may be that your schedule is a conflict. Right. You have another event. There are so many things where you can't take a job. So it's not always about not taking the job. There may be another fit that works for them. Your schedule may be booked. And that's another thing as a speaker, it's good to have a network because that can also work for you as well. They could also refer work to you.
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So it's not just about what you can book, but also about referrals coming from colleagues and giving those same referrals to your colleagues. Mm-hmm, the importance of networking. Yes. Mr. Tuff, thank you so much for being with us today. This has been so valuable. That's been great, thank you. And if there's one or two sentences, your last words of wisdom, Forrest, what would you say? Get it done. Get it done, words of wisdom from Forrest Tuff.
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the CEO of One Vision Productions and a keynote speaker. And before you go, please tell us where in social media we can find you so that if we want to book you for speaking engagements or are looking to brand ourselves or our companies, we can find you. If you go to my website, Forresttuff.com, and that's Forrest with two R's, two T's, two F's, foresttough.com, you can find all my social media links, everything about me from my
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production business to my film work, and also me as a public speaker or my coaching services. So once again, forresttuff.com, and that will get you to everything. Thank you so much. Forresttuff.com for being able to continue to have a conversation with Mr. Forresttuff, our guest today on the show. Thank you for being here. I really enjoyed our conversation. Yeah, it's been great. Thank you.
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