Level Up Your Speaking Skills with Dustin Mathews
In today’s episode of Just the Tips, Dean and I talk with a man with his own empire, Dustin Mathews, the founder and CEO of Speaking Empire, about how he conquered his own fear of public speaking, and how you can sharpen your speaking skills. Dustin is the co-author of the No B.S. Guide to Powerful Presentations with Dan Kennedy, and one of the most sought-after experts on public speaking. In this episode, Dustin walks his through the early days of his career, what set him on the path to discovering what makes a great presentation, and when we ask him for one or two tips for making a great presentation, he switches it up on us. Promising to “overdeliver,” he gives us five things you can do right now to level up your presentation. There’s no way you can miss this episode.
In the beginning, there was nothing
What’s interesting about Dustin is that he didn’t initially have the entrepreneurial drive. Out of college he got a job and set out to work his way up, but then he read Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad, and that set him on his current path. He volunteered for a startup in his town and got to see how the business was run behind the scenes. And after working there for three years, managing marketing and sales, he decided it was time to go do it for himself. But of course, it’s never that easy, and Dustin is very candid about the challenges and pitfalls that awaited him as he started out, something the Just the Tips audience could not only sympathize with, but learn from.
How he went through a public speaking “trial by fire”
Dustin told us about how his first pitch, really his first experience public speaking, at the tender age of 25 got him his first business. But that doesn’t mean he was a natural. He told us how he was initially very nervous about public speaking, and that he actually dodged a public speaking requirement in college. He really only came into his own via “trial by fire,” he says, when at his new company he was forced to speak. And surprise surprise, it wasn’t that bad. And after that speaking engagement landed them new customers, it “completely changed his world” and how he viewed public speaking. It opened his eyes to how powerful speaking can be, and how it can trigger people into action. And hearing him talk about that on this episode of Just the Tips, you may be inspired to take that leap, too.
“The excitement that lets me know I’m alive”
One of the turning points for Dustin was when he stopped thinking of the “butterflies” before getting onstage as something bad, but rather as “the excitement that pulses through my body that lets me know that I’m alive.” He picked that up from Rolling Stone interviews with famous musicians, where they talk about how they feel before they go onstage. It may surprise you that he borrows from music, but actually, he claims his new book about making powerful presentations is “about choreography.” The book, No B.S. Guide to Powerful Presentations (which he co-wrote with Dan Kennedy), is about more than just making a presentation. As Dustin says in this episode of Just the Tips, it’s about “the whole picture,” what goes into a presentation before and after it’s made. As he says, “You don’t have to be a Tony Robbins to get people to act,” and he provides great insight into what factors add up to a successful presentation.
The five core components of a persuasive presentation
Dustin is extremely generous with his time, and instead of giving us just one or two tips, he walked us through his five core components of a persuasive presentation, with a tip for each component. Now, you’re going to want to listen to this episode again and again, because he packs so much good advice in there, and there are some really easy, but transformative tips you won’t want to miss. One, which seems so easy and simple but so few people do it, make sure you’re introduced, whether by another person or a video. It helps set you up as an authority, and it brings an energy to the room that wouldn’t have been there if you simply walked out onstage. He dives into way more than that, including the central importance of story in a presentation, and really delivers a ton of value for Just the Tips listeners. We think this episode will be one you have on repeat for a long time.
Outline of This Episode
- [2:50] Dustin’s entrepreneur origin story
- [4:24] The challenges at the start of an entrepreneurial career
- [6:31] How he became a dynamite public speaker
- [8:19] The two things that radically changed Dustin’s life
- [16:40] Five core components of a persuasive presentation
- [21:34] Writing a solid call to action
- [27:25] Dustin provides an example of a persuasive presentation
Resources & People Mentioned
Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
