đ Hi, Iâm Jeff. I write weekly about lessons Iâve learned leading product teams and working to lead well in chaotic environments, drawing on 25+ years of building.
â± Read time: 5 minutes
Years ago, I was in a keynote speaker training session at LinkedIn with six other leaders. This course was for a group of us preparing to speak on large company stages. The instructor mentioned he had worked with Sheryl Sandberg, and then shared something sheâd told him that stuck with me.
He told us that sheâd said preparing for any single keynote was simply a matter of time and effort. You can always grind through it with raw effort. But whatâs more valuable is honing how you prepare for more regular public speaking. You canât always spend unlimited time preparing.
That reframe shifts the goal from surviving one talk to building a lightweight system you can use in any context, from keynotes to smaller stages or important meetings.
I ended up experiencing speaker training at both LinkedIn and Facebook, and Iâve spoken in front of large audiences enough where Iâve learned what works for me. Here are a few tips that can apply to keynotes and all-hands meetings, but also to any setting where you need to deliver a clear message.
Some overarching advice: Spend time preparing your presence at least as much as your content.
1. Open with a specific energy, not just words.
Content fills the slides; presence fills the room. Those first 60 seconds of any talk set the tone for the room and you. The most common audience response is to tune out, lean forward, or laugh. You want one of those last two. The energy you bring to the stage in those first seconds is how youâll feel for the next 20 minutes. You can create humor, a relaxed vibeâwhatever you want. But make it intentional because that vibe carries the whole session.
Iâve found it helpful before giving a keynote to watch the opening 60 seconds of skilled speakers you enjoy on YouTube. Not to copy them, but to calibrate energy. Michelle Obama is helpful for me â sheâs excellent at the first 60 seconds because she brings the room in effortlessly.
Iâve also gone back and watched old Mike Gamson talks at LinkedIn. Find what works for you.
2. Start somewhere unexpected.
Once youâve locked the energy youâre bringing in, you build the content. Many speakers default to what feels safe. Audiences are more forgiving and more responsive to the unusual, so push past safe. You have more license than you think. Take advantage.
Iâve opened talks with jokes or questions. Iâve asked audiences to stand up and stretch or say hello to each other. I once led a large room through a short Headspace meditation. The room always loosens, and more importantly, so do I. Humor, physicality, interactivity all work as openers. Be a little different.
3. Find a human story.
Messages land stronger when attached to a story. Arguments anchored in a scene become more memorable. Whether you share customer stories, team tales, or something from the past, find a way to connect your talk to something human that will stick for your audience.
4. Rule of Three.
Some speakers get in front of large audiences and build narratives that feel exhaustive. The speakerâs real worry is leaving something out. But when you string too many ideas together, audiences in a large room canât ingest or remember what comes across as competing concepts.
The best talks are built on three messages. Think A, then B, then C, and connect them. To the human brain, one is a fact, two is a contrast, three is a rhythm. The brain remembers rhythm.
Three simple ideas hit the sweet spot between too little and too much for working memory. If you add a fourth idea, audiences remember less than if youâd stopped at three.
5. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Repeat your A, B, and C. Tell people up front what the three things are. Remind them where you are in the context of the three. Summarize the three messages at the end. This gives your talk a feeling of simplicity and inevitability.
Remember, the second messenger matters more than the first. The powerful moment is when someone in that room repeats your three points to someone else later. Thatâs the start of verbal virality.
6. Use your body. Slow down.
A common missed opportunity I see is speakers flying through their key points. Think through how you move on stage: how you use your hands, the way you walk, when you start and stop motion, your pacing. Physical storytelling and pace are underrated.
Slow down where it matters. Pauses feel three times longer to you than they do to your audience. Go ahead and take the pause.
7. Think and practice in blocks, not scripts.
Organize talks as a small group of building blocks. Think of it as discrete sections that each have their own logic rather than a linear script.
Linear scripts are fragile. When one thing goes differently than planned, a whole talk can unravel or change your confidence. Blocks are more flexible. You can react to live moments on stage or adjust timing because youâre just playing with blocks. To the audience, it feels like itâs all working.
Once you have your blocks, rehearse the transitions between them. Talks can lose momentum moving from idea to new idea. The transitions need to feel seamless. Try each a few times until the blocks string together simply.
8. Make your practice feel real.
If youâre going to give the talk standing, practice standing. If youâll be using a clicker, wire one up to your laptop to try beforehand. Donât rehearse sitting at a desk, or worse, in your mind, and expect your body to show up differently on stage. The goal is to make the real thing feel like a talk youâve already done well a few times.
9. Settle your mind.
After all the prep, I often use a short 3-5 minute guided meditationâusually from the Headspace appâsometime on the day of the talk. It helps settle my breathing, clear my head, and let the preparation do its work from a state of flow rather than memorization.
That was Sheryl Sandbergâs point: donât prepare for a talk. Build a system.
Most speakers prepare their content. Few prepare their presence. The gap between a talk that lands and one that doesnât lives right there. Not in the slides.
What do you do before a big talk that most people wouldnât expect?