Preparation is Respect: Always do your homework
The cliche when it comes to the ‘P Word’ that I grew up with is: “Piss Poor Preparation, Promotes Piss Poor Performances”.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I’d long left school before I realised that homework and studying was all about preparation to pass my exams at school.
I didn’t pass my exams at school, probably because I didn’t enjoy doing my homework.
But that was because I hated school and most of the subjects that I had to sit through.
However, many years after leaving school, I found myself hosting an event as one of my first gigs as a host for a black-tie members dinner.
It was my job to do a short welcome speech and then personally announce and welcome the non-member guests and the main speaker for the evening.
I thought this would be a piece of cake.
The day before the event, I reached out to the organiser via email, requesting a list of the attending members, non-member guests, and the keynote speaker who is the highlight of the event.
When he replied, he left a line in the email that gave me a bit of a jolt: “I did wonder when you’d be getting in touch, leaving it rather late…?”.
I shrugged it off and looked at the list, there were 75 members and 15 non-member guests and the guest speaker. This would be easy.
On the night, a few of the members who had brought guests along mentioned that I hadn’t been in touch to find out about who their guests were.
I reassured them that I had a list of all the non-member guests and would be mentioning them in my welcome speech.
When the evening started, I was introduced by the club president, and I stood up with my paper in hand.
I smiled and started my welcome speech which I had decided to just do off the cuff.
I thought it would be easy enough.
Within about 30 seconds, I heard myself “it’s great to see so many people here at this great event, I’m sure we’re all going to have a great evening and the food and entertainment will be great…”
In my head a voice said, “stop saying ‘great’ for fuck’s sake!!”
I began to panic, my face was going red, the people in the room were looking a bit confused.
What was I actually saying?
So, I cut my rambling short – “Anyway, let’s introduce some of our guests….”
I looked down at the paper and just began to read the names in the order that I had printed them off.
This whole thing was beginning to sound like a teacher reading out a class register.
The room was deadly silent and when I started to look around, I could see there weren’t many smiles and most of the members I knew were unable to look up at me.
When I’d listed the guests, I finished with “anyway, I hope we all have a great night and enjoy hearing from our special guest who will be entertaining us with a great speech after our dinner. Thank you”.
There was a very bleak round of applause, and I sat down, completely flustered and embarrassed.
But it was to get worse.
The person I was sitting next to, leaned over and said, “did you forget my name?”.
I was sitting beside the man who was being paid by the members club to deliver a speech about his life and successful career, he was the ‘headline act’ and a very well-known and established speaker.
I had completely forgotten to welcome him and even say his name in my speech.
It was a disaster.
Even thinking about it now has me cringing.
Sensing my embarrassment, the guest speaker put a very kind and sympathetic hand on my shoulder and said, “don’t worry about it, these things happen”.
It didn’t make me feel any better, but I appreciate the gesture now looking back.
That night was a very harsh lesson for me.
No matter how many times a teacher had shouted at me, or I’d found myself in an exam hall not having a clue how to answer the question on the paper, that night I realised the importance of doing my homework.
When it comes to public speaking and hosting, failing to prepare and not putting the effort in is the ultimate sign of disrespect and a slap in the face for the audience.
The next year it was suggested that I get a second chance at hosting the same event to redeem myself to the members of the club.
Three weeks before the event, I asked the organisers for a full list of guests and who the guest speaker would be.
I contacted the members who were inviting non-member guests to ask for any significant details about who they were bringing.
I reached out to the guest speaker to ask about the subject, topics and themes of his speech and studied their bio.
I spent hours over the days and weeks in advance of the dinner finding out stories or details from the club members from the last 12 months since the previous dinner.
I practiced my lines over and over again.
All of this for just 7 minutes of speaking.
And when I stood up to welcome everyone to the event, it felt amazing to see the delight in the audiences faces and how much they appreciated the details that I was able to add about them and their guests.
They respected and recognised the work that I had put in for them.
Preparation is respect for the people you are speaking to, and a key public speaking skill.
If it’s a keynote speech or a one-to-one feedback session, if you’ve taken the time to prepare and make the effort, then the recipients of what you are saying will recognise and appreciate it.
Tailoring what you say to the audience builds connections and engages everyone in the room.
Engagement and connection builds trust between the audience and the speaker.
In my interview with Music Journalist Billy Sloan who has interviewed some of the biggest names in the world through an incredible forty-year career, his key message was simple:
Be professional, be prepared and always do your homework.
When I was at school, I didn’t care about passing tests or exams, but I care about speaking.
This was a valuable and sore lesson for me, and one that I remind myself about whenever I need to do my homework.
