On the 4th of July 2019 Turn the Talk hosted its inaugural public speaking workshop at the Trampery in Shoreditch, London. Over 60 delegates from across the performance marketing landscape attended the event ready to learn, share public speaking barriers and network.
The event, concepted as a result of Turn the Talk’s public speaking and diversity report was designed to equip attendees with the skills and confidence, they needed to take to the stage at industry events, and ultimately increase diversity across events in our industry. The event provided an open forum for attendees to share their public speaking barriers and discuss solutions.
A huge thank you must go to our event sponsors, Awin, Affiliate Summit, PI Live, Rakuten Marketing, RevLifter, TopCashback and Webgains.
After a welcome speech from two of the Turn the Talk team, the event was kickstarted by event Master of Ceremonies, Chris Grimes, Co-Founder of performance coaching consultancy, Second Curve. In his high-energy session Chris talked to attendees all about how to hold your own on stage. He talked all about how the best presenters own the room, connect with their audience and make their presentation a conversation. A key take-away from his session was that presenters should “prepare for variety, not practice perfection.”
Authenticity was also a key theme for attendees. He reminded everyone in the room that they should “Be themselves, as everyone else is taken.”
Following Chris’ high-energy key note session, attendees then took part in three rotational workshops, in smaller groups of 20, which tackled three of the key barriers to public speaking identified in the Turn the Talk report; nerves, preparation and authenticity.
The first workshop was run by Jo Hind Co-Founder of Birdsoup. In her workshop Jo talked all about why we get nervous, the psychology of nerves and how we can tackle those all-important nerves.
The second workshop was run by Acceleration Partners EMEA Managing Director, Helen Southgate. She used her 16+ years of industry experience to share best practice for planning and preparing a presentation, how to avoid crutch words and her biggest learnings. Of course, spell checking and testing the deck were big themes.
The final workshop was run by Tina Judic, CEO of Found. Tina’s session talked all about the importance of authenticity and how to be yourself on stage, with some great examples of speakers to watch. She commented:
“Think about why you’re speaking, not simply what you’re saying”
After the workshops there was a short networking break and attendees could share their barriers to public speaking whilst enjoying drinks and nibbles.
Kicking off the second half of the event was Head of PR at Carwow, Vix Leyton. In her inspiring session, Vix talked all about how she used a stand-up comedy course to get the confidence to speak at industry events. A key takeaway from her session was pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones and the ultimate reward of achieving those goals.
To close the event, Managing Partner at Adtraction, Anthony Clements hosted the Public Speaking in Performance Marketing Panel. Joined by Performance Marketing Consultant, Caroline Mulvihill, Global Client Strategy Director at Awin, Kevin Edwards, VP of Strategic Insights and Supply at Rakuten, Rakhee Jogia and Co-Founder of RevLifter, Simon Bird the panel were quizzed on their thoughts on industry diversity and how they got started in public speaking. Lots of open insights were shared from the panel and we hope debates like this can continue at future events.
Thank you to everyone who attended our Turn the Talk workshop, it was amazing to see such positive and open discussions around public speaking and diversity in our industry.
Please visit our Flickr page to view all photos from the event.
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