Nov. 3, 2025

467: Public speaking starter kit for club pros, w/ Denny Corby

This episode is a beginner friendly kit for anyone speaking in front of people, clubs, teams, boards, or conferences. You will learn a simple structure that uses fifteens and tens, how to build clean chunks, one idea, one story, one tool, how to use WIIFM so people lean in, and how to finish on time. We cover pre show nerves, mix and mingle to make friends, the smile on purpose trick, confidence monitors for secret notes, slide do’s, crowd control, and the silent vibrate alarm so you can pivot without staring at your watch. Short, sweet, on time, and packed with practical moves you can use this week.

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00:00 - Welcome And Topic Overview

02:53 - Value First, Not A Sales Pitch

04:10 - WIIFM And Audience Focus

05:45 - Managing Rooms And Q&A Etiquette

09:35 - Have Fun And Reduce Pressure

12:35 - A Simple 60-Minute Talk Structure

18:20 - Adapting Length And Topic Counts

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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs, from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance, and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light.

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Whether you're a club veteran, just getting your feet wet, or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place.

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I'm your host, Denny Corby.

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Welcome to the show.

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In this episode, we are chatting about speaking in front of people, which, let's be honest, is most of us all the time, all day, every day.

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And I see more folks presenting in all capacities, in all industries, not just ours.

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And I just wanted to share some tips, some tricks, some little moves that might help.

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This is mostly beginner stuff, but some good all-around nuggets in here when it comes to presenting and speaking and giving presentations in front of people.

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I'm going to talk about tips and tricks.

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I'm going to talk about structure, how you can structure a talk with different time frames and how to edit that to adjust in a lot to different time frames and just kind of just brain dump a little bit of some of my little go-to hacks.

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The number one thing is when you are presenting and you have the ability and the opportunity and the, you know, whether you're paid, whether you're a presenter, a sponsor, a speaker, it doesn't matter.

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When you have the ability to speak in front of a group, the biggest thing is you should be able to and want to provide as much value as you can, meaning they should walk away with at least one or two solid nuggets.

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And it could be something small or big, it doesn't matter.

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But like there should be some little nuggets in there that if people walk away, they might not like you, but they might take away something.

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You know what I mean?

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No.

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But you want to engage, you want to uh provide as much value and give as much valuable content, data, whatever it is, that they can walk away going, that was not a pitch fest.

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So it's more especially for the vendors and partner suppliers.

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But like if you actually genuinely have something to sell, like do not sell it.

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The product will sell itself eventually.

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The karma gods all come back full, full circle.

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So just provide as much valuable information as you can to the audience that you are presenting to.

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When you're presenting, when you're thinking about the group that you are going to be in front of, whether it's your peers, whether it's a CMAA event, whether it's a board event, whether it's, it could be anything, an end of the year, it could be one of your team events.

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One of the things you always have to remember is when people are there, when they're there engaged in listening, they're also thinking about their favorite radio station.

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They're all tuned into W I I F M.

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That was one of the things I some I heard years ago is uh everyone's always tuned into their favorite radio station, W-I-I-F-M.

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And that is what's in it for me.

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Everyone's always thinking, what's in it for me.

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So when you're thinking about your topics, you want to keep it nice and short and sweet and palp, you know, palpable and easy to consume.

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You want to make it as easy as possible, um, especially if it's maybe a more complex topic.

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But um, always want to think W-I-I-F-M, what's in it for my listeners, what's in it for my audience, what are they going to get away from it?

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And when you think about this from their perspective, from the WII FM, what's in it for me, what's in it for them, you know, tell them why it matters to them today.

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If you feel part of the room, you might be losing a little bit, or you might just need like a better connection.

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Uh, side note, it helps to sometimes go over and just engage more in that area, maybe ask a question over there, or just go and stand over that that part of the room to help kind of get that focus back a little bit and calm some maybe some side shatter down.

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If you're doing a QA or if somebody asks a question, very important to repeat the question out loud before you give the answer.

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Um, it helps everybody understand because oftentimes we think like, oh, oh, they heard or every everybody heard.

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Plus, it also gives you as the speaker, as the expert, the person speaking, um, an extra beat to take the question in to re-engaging it the best possible answer.

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Um, so just repeating it out loud and nice and clear so everybody can hear it keeps people focused a little bit more.

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Most importantly, though, as you're doing this, if when you have the ability to speak in front of people, your peers, people in the industry here, other people, groups, boards, it doesn't matter.

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Have fun.

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That's the most fun part.

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I mean, for me, clubs are adult playgrounds, right?

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This is where people go to have fun.

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And uh most of the time when we're speaking to people, it's in this fun place, this fun capacity.

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And when we get to talk about things, they should be fun.

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So have fun when you present, make sure it's not stressful, don't put stress on yourself, make some friends.

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And when you have the ability to share and engage and give information and inspire and give value, I think that's the most important thing.

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So usually most speaking things are about 60 minutes.

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So for me, that is broken up into 15-minute chunks or three different topics, three different things that I want to highlight.

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Um, you know, so sometimes it's, you know, there's a couple standard topics that, you know, I have that I speak on.

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But sometimes when you work with different little groups and chapters and little specific industry things or speci uh specific clubs or organizations, whatever it has you, sometimes you really niche in and sometimes really focus in on a couple more specific topics and things and ideas and concepts versus a little bit more broad.

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But let's just assume for all things, you know, we have 60 minutes that you have to present.

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To me, that is okay, that's three different topics and easily broken down into 15-minute chunks.

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Meaning, so I'm gonna have about seven and a half minutes in the beginning to open, reintroduce myself.

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Uh, hopefully, if you've listened to previous episodes, I think it was episode uh 463, all about how to have a good introduction that you can give or has or that someone can give for you to bring you on stage.

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Uh, but usually it's about seven and a half minutes for me uh that I usually buffer in the beginning to kind of reintroduce myself to the crowd, you know, kind of build rapport a tiny bit and set expectations and let's being lets uh them know what to expect in um why they should pay attention um to me for the next hour or however much time you have.

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So that's about seven and a half minutes.

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Then you have about three 15-minute chunks of talking about your topic.

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To me, that's you know, hey, three ideas, three concepts, and then a nice story with that to accompany each one.

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So you can tell a story of why it relates to them and what's going on and you know, and who you're talking with.

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Uh so you have the story and you have the lesson and why it's a takeaway and why it matters for what's going on.

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And then from there you do that three times.

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Then you have about a seven-minute wrap-up.

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Uh, so usually seven and a half minutes to kind of bring everything full circle, reintroduce all the three concepts that you introduced in the beginning and then talked about all the way through.

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And then, you know, if sometimes there might be a question or two, but usually that's about a solid 60 minutes.

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Then what's nice though is then you can take that same structure and move that for different time periods.

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So if you have 30 minutes, so now you're gonna assume you can do eight minutes on each topic and about six minutes, you know, to kind of introduce and just go straight into it.

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The less time you have, the more time you do up front to kind of engage with the with your audience and your peers.

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You just kind of go straight in into it.

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The less time you have, the more time, the more you can kind of have that little bit of that buffer in the very, very beginning.

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Oh, and by the way, your talk doesn't need to be those three things, those three chunks.

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Um, that just for me makes it easy and consumable for the for the audience.

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Uh, but same thing if you want to have something like the top five ideas or the five things I learned, the ten takeaways, uh, you then just do the math accordingly, and that and that's your time chunk.

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That's your that's how you break it down.

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And when you have a conference monitor, sometimes they can put a timer on there, which will help keep you on time, which is another key thing in our next topic is being respectful of the time and the time that you have on stage or in front of the group and how it plays into the entire day.

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I MC a lot, I do a lot of different things, and sometimes flow and timing is very important.

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Sometimes there's a strict schedule for different whatever reasons, other times it's a little bit more flowy, but I see too many people getting you put a microphone in their hand and they just go and they just go off.

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They get so excited and they get this power almost sometimes.

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And listen, I've been guilty, I've I've I've gone over on time.

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Guilty, guilty, guilty.

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Uh, we we we we we all have, hopefully for like good reasons, but um being uh being timely with your allotted time on stages of rock star move and to finish on time and do that is killer.

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Um, and if you can adjust your time accordingly to help to help with the entire thing.

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So if you have the ability to adjust your time to put it on track or put it back on track, be that rock star.

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Don't people think sometimes like I have the hour, I'm gonna take the full hour.

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Guess what?

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Sometimes you're between them and food and everybody else went over, and they just want to get out, you know.

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So like read the room, understand, and you get more kudos sometimes for being that rock star.

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Uh, because sometimes people can know and feel and understand when things go long and over, and you can like feel it in the room.

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And if you can, if if you're that last person, if you're between some things, or if you just know things are are off track, if you can help put something back on track, whew, that's a rock star power move.

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That's why I like having stories attached to the different ideas, lessons, concepts, whatever have you, because you can adjust those stories to be shorter or longer.

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So depending on how much time you have or need to fill, not fill.

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Uh, and sometimes it happens where it's not just short time, sometimes you can fill more time.

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If other speakers go short or other things happen, you can put things back on time.

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Uh, so it's not just OH cutting time, sometimes it's also doing more time, also.

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And if you are nervous about time, you can also set a silent alarm for yourself that can vibrate at a certain time.

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And it can vibrate and it doesn't have to just sound the alarm.

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You can just make it vibrate so only you can feel it.

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So you can, you know, have it start as soon as you go on stage and you know you have 60 minutes and you can have it go off at 50 minutes.

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So then you know you have 10 minutes left to wrap it up, and then you can hit it, you know, hit the button in your in your pants, or you know, usually if it's in like your back pocket.

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Um, girls, if you're wearing or if you're wearing a dress, uh, so hopefully it has pockets, and uh you'll know it has pockets because they'll tell you about it.

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No.

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Uh but um, you know, if you can have uh those like little things help, um, and you can also have one at like five minutes before, so it's like another like an additional wrap-up.

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Um, and that's just little things to do instead of just like looking blatantly at your watch or being the person to ask like how much time do I have left?

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Um, so those are just little like tips and tricks there.

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Now, sometimes if you are maybe more on the anxious side when you're speaking, maybe it's new people who you don't know as much.

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An easy thing to kind of help ease that up is show up early, obviously, which you should anyway, but make make new friends.

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To me, it's always just about making new friends and saying hi and introducing myself to a few people, just starting up a couple conversations, making new friends, and just kind of helping make friends in the audience so then it makes it a little bit less awkward for you.

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One thing I like to do before I go on stage is you can't always do it for different reasons, but I always try to crack a joke or make somebody else laugh before I go right up on stage.

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Uh to me, it just puts like a more natural smile on my face, and I think it just makes for a better first impression when you first go on stage.

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So that's also a nice little tip that I try to do and try to tell other people to do as well.

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Now, another tip also is um attention first and then talk.

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So I don't try to really start and fully go into it until I have the attention of the room.

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So I kind of know I can kill sometimes upwards of a minute if for some reason the attention is a little bit off.

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Maybe, you know, for whatever reason there was there's some movement going on or some snacks were being passed around.

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Who knows, who knows?

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But uh, you want to make sure you have that full attention.

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So being able to talk and kind of garner that attention, being able to kill maybe sometimes 60 seconds to a minute of just, and sometimes it is just like a word vomit almost, just to kind of get get the attention.

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Um, and at a worst, if you can't, if it's a big important thing and you really need their silence, you know, just stand there, smile, breathe, and let the room settle.

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Um, also, if you stand there and hold your breath, that gets the attention a lot quicker.

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It fills the room with attention.

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If you haven't ever tried that, try it because it works and it's really, really weird.

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Um, but and it is a little bit awkward.

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Um, but yeah, so sometimes even just standing there for a beat or two in silence, looking at the room gets the attention pretty quick and people understand the assignment.

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Also make sure you do a mic and voice check.

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Always assume the mic isn't as loud as you think.

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So speak maybe a little bit louder than you think.

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If it's a handheld mic, hold it closer to your mouth.

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Also, watch people.

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Uh, sometimes you'll be seeing cues.

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I've seen people um or I I do it as well for people.

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If you can tell that the microphone, if it's a handheld, they start moving it down or their arm starts getting tired, or for like whatever reason, it just starts moving down further and further because they're just getting more comfortable on stage.

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So you have to sometimes remind them to hold hold it up to their closer to their to their mouth.

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Um, so always do a mic check, if possible, ear set mics, lab mics always work.

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Uh, but always do a proper mic check before you go on.

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Uh if the room is empty, it makes it a little bit easier and less awkward.

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When you're doing your presentation, slides help, but they are not the show.

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Pictures, big type, clean images, short phrases, one idea per slide when you can.

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If your slide looks like a menu, shorten it.

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Um, please don't read your paragraphs or your sentences that are on your slides to the audience.

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The audience can see that.

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Um, if anything, you're better off just putting a word, maybe.

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So maybe it's a three sentences or your three ideas.

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So maybe you just have a keyword from that sentence and there's three slides.

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Uh, maybe it's a picture that has to do with that keyword.

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Um, because then it kind of keeps the people more focused on you and they're not pre-reading and then they're getting ahead of you.

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So just don't read from your slides, please.

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Thank you.

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One thing that's always a big help is the use of a confidence monitor when when possible.

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And all that is keywords for is an additional monitor that has extra slides on it.

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So usually that is the notes feature, which is uh, if you don't know that whether you use Canva or Google Slides or PowerPoint, whatever, um Apple, I think it was the Apple keynote.

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Um, there's there's the there's a notes portion where you could, when you share your monitor or share your screen, or sometimes when you can give your presentation to um an A V team or something, uh if there's a confidence monitor, that's a monitor that only you can see from the speaker's point of view, you can put your notes there.

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So your slides are still showing, but you will see just your notes and whatever you want to have on there.

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So that can be all of your sentences, all of your reminders, all of your keywords, uh things that are gonna help you get through whatever you need to get through to get that slide, that idea, that concept across.

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I like that a lot.

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Um, even if it's not a big event and it's a small event, and I still like having one.

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So I just use, I set up my laptop to be the conference monitor.

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So you just have a longer HDMI cord, plug into your laptop, plug that into the power, or plug that into the projector, and then you can just uh move the monitors around accordingly and turn your laptop into your confidence monitor.

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Then you just put that on the table in front of where you're speaking.

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Uh, always try to place it within eye view of like forward from the audience, meaning not to like the side.

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You want to have it so you don't break or you don't want to break eye contact as much as possible.

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Uh, however, you can look at that while still maintaining uh gazes with the audience.

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We talked about a lot of things.

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I word vomited a bit, I just brain dumped.

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I've just seen so much recently, I've been doing so much recently, and I just want to help you all as much as possible because I see a lot of people speaking and doing some stuff.

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I want to see people continue to do well.

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So just always remember WIIFM, what's in it for me?

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What's in it for your audience, the people that you're you're spending time with, that you're giving to, break it up into easy chunks, especially if you're a little bit newer, uh, or if you're just thinking about how to put something together, if you have a certain amount of time, 60 minutes, how to chunk that together.

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There's all those just different tips and tricks in there.

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Mix and mingle, meet some new friends before you go on, smile, crack a joke before you go on, provide value, have fun.

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And I'll leave you with my favorite line.

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And that is when you're presenting, when you're speaking, you don't have to tell everybody what you know.

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You only have to tell them what they need to know.

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You don't have to tell everybody what you know, you only have to tell them what they need to know.

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Get in, provide value, have fun, give, give, give.

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And do it as much as you can.

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Because that's one skill that is never gonna go away, that you can always use and will always be valuable, and that is public speaking up front in front of people.

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So I hope it helped.

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Hope you got some takeaways, hope you got something, hope you're kill it at your next speaking thing.

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I'm your host, Andy Corby.

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That's this episode.

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Until next time, catch y'all on the flippity flip.