I was at an event once where a speaker got up and delivered her talk.
It did not go well.
Afterward, she was completely flustered. She kept saying that she’d given this exact talk several times before and audiences had loved it.
So what was wrong with this audience?
The problem wasn’t the audience.
She got up there and did what she always did without taking into consideration the time of day, the length of her talk, what was happening around her in the room, or who was actually sitting in front of her.
She delivered her talk.
She didn’t adapt it to this audience.
As a comedian, you learn pretty quickly that saying, “But that joke killed last night!” doesn’t mean a thing to the audience sitting in front of you tonight.
Same material. Different room.
I’ve spent years as an actor, comedian and professional speaker, and I’ve realized that some of the most important things I know about keynote speaking didn’t come from speaker training.
They came from performing.
Here are a few of them.
You Have to Earn the Room
The first 3–5 minutes matter.
You have to come out of the gate interesting, clever and likable enough to get people’s attention—and make them actually want to hear what you have to say.
Having a microphone doesn’t automatically make you interesting.
Neither does having an impressive bio.
Comedians understand this because audiences tell us immediately.
If they’re not interested, you’ll know.
Speakers sometimes get a little more grace because audiences are polite.
Don’t confuse politeness with engagement.
You still have to earn the room.
And part of earning the room is being relatable.
Comedy works because the audience recognizes something in what you’re saying. You’re taking something familiar and presenting it in a way they haven’t thought about before.
Speaking works the same way.
If your message is so complex, intellectual, technical or “expert” that people can’t find themselves in it, you’ve lost them.
Find the human way in.
Effortless Takes a Ridiculous Amount of Work
The way you present needs to be 100% you, 100% worked on, and look 100% easy—like you’re not trying.
Effortless, rehearsed perfection coated in ease.
That’s the goal.
Which is why I don’t believe in winging a keynote.
Know your material.
Having a basic outline and figuring you’ll fill in the rest once you’re up there usually means you’ll meander.
Audiences hate that.
Don’t waste their time.
Interestingly, the better you know your material, the more freedom you have onstage.
You can speed something up. Slow something down. Skip a section. Move something. Respond to what’s happening in the room. Spend longer somewhere because you can tell the audience needs it.
Preparation isn’t rigidity.
Preparation gives you the freedom to adapt.
Timing Is Bigger Than the Pause Before the Punchline
Obviously timing matters in comedy.
But timing isn’t only about how you say a line.
It’s also about WHEN something happens in your talk.
I’ve watched speakers struggle with a section that isn’t landing and assume the material itself is the problem.
Sometimes it’s perfectly good material.
It’s just in the wrong spot.
A story that falls flat 10 minutes into a talk might land beautifully 35 minutes in, after the audience knows you better or understands why the story matters.
A serious moment may need breathing room around it.
A funny section may need to come earlier because the room desperately needs energy.
Sometimes you don’t need to rewrite your content.
You need to rearrange it.
The Audience Is Your Editor
You can rewrite a keynote to death.
You can sit at your computer changing words, rearranging paragraphs and obsessing over your opening.
But until you get in front of an actual audience and see, hear, feel and notice their response, you don’t really know what works.
The audience is your editor.
They tell you where you’re interesting.
They tell you where you’re confusing.
They tell you where something is too long.
They tell you where the laugh actually is.
They tell you when you’ve lost them.
They tell you when you’ve got them.
This is why mic time matters so much.
Speakers can become terrified of putting something onstage until it’s “finished.”
Comedians don’t have that luxury.
Eventually, you have to try the material.
And sometimes it bombs.
You Have to Be Willing to Fail
Speakers are terrified of failing in front of an audience.
Comedians are, too.
We just have to do it anyway.
Comedy requires you to take risks. Sometimes those risks pay off big.
Sometimes they bomb.
And there isn’t always much in between.
Then you get to experience the delightful emotional journey afterward of wondering whether you’ve lost all ability to be funny and should find an entirely different career.
But failure gives you information.
You learn who your audience is.
You learn what material works.
You learn what needs to be rewritten.
You learn what gets left on the cutting-room floor.
And eventually you learn how to separate:
“That didn’t work.”
from:
“I’m terrible at this.”
If you want to become a better speaker faster, this may be one of the biggest things I can tell you:
Get mic time.
Be willing to fail.
And learn how to deal with the discomfort afterward.
Great Writing and Great Delivery Are Two Different Skills
There are comedians who are great writers but don’t deliver well.
There are comedians who can deliver almost anything beautifully, but their material isn’t very good.
The great ones can do both.
It’s exactly the same with speakers.
I don’t care how much you know.
If you can’t deliver it in a compelling way, you’re going to struggle.
But the reverse is also true.
You can be charismatic, funny, polished and phenomenal onstage, but if there’s no purpose or meaningful point underneath your material, you’re going to struggle as a professional speaker, too.
Great speaking requires both.
Something worth saying and the ability to say it well.
Edit. Edit. Edit.
Comedy teaches you to cut.
Extra questions.
Over-explaining.
A rabbit-trail story that never really ties back to the message.
Three examples when one would have done the job.
All of it costs you attention.
Sometimes speakers become so attached to what they want to say that they forget to ask what the audience actually needs to hear.
Cut the material down to what lands and what matters.
Then let the rest go.
Please Stop Sounding Like Every Other Speaker
This is one of my biggest frustrations with professional speaking.
Speakers can get trained and polished until they start sounding exactly like everybody else.
Same rhythms.
Same dramatic pauses.
Same perfectly rehearsed gestures.
Same inspirational cadence.
Stop.
Be yourself.
Embrace your own style. Your own opinions. Your own story. Your own way of seeing the world.
Your uniquity is an asset.
Comedy teaches this brutally well.
You can imitate someone else’s style for a while, but eventually you have to figure out what you sound like.
The same is true for speakers.
Your personality isn’t something we need to polish out of your keynote.
It’s part of what makes the keynote yours.
There’s Money in the Middle
Comedy and professional speaking have an interesting problem on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Comedy can swing so far toward vulgarity or shock that the shock becomes the point.
Professional speakers can swing so far in the opposite direction—corporate-safe, polished, careful, determined not to upset anybody—that they don’t really say anything at all.
There is middle ground.
You can be provocative without being reckless.
You can have an opinion without being a jerk.
You can challenge an audience without alienating them.
You can be funny without becoming inappropriate.
You can be professional without becoming boring.
Middle ground is where the money is.
There Is No Finish Line
This may be the biggest thing comedy and professional speaking have in common.
You’re never done.
There is no moment when you finally say:
“There. I have mastered the stage.”
Your material can always get tighter.
Your timing can always improve.
Your stories can get better.
Your point of view can become clearer.
Your ability to read a room can become sharper.
Both crafts require constant growth, risk and adaptation.
If you’re someone who requires ease, certainty and stability, the stage—as a comedian OR a speaker—is probably not the place for you.
But if you’re willing to keep learning, keep testing, keep editing, keep failing and keep getting back onstage?
That’s where you get good.
Really good.
Is Your Keynote Actually Working?
One of the hardest things about developing a keynote is that eventually you get too close to it to see it clearly.
You know what you meant.
You know why the story matters.
You know where people are supposed to laugh.
You know what you’re trying to make the audience feel.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what the audience is experiencing.
That’s why I offer my Keynote Review.
I look at your keynote through the eyes of both a professional speaker and a performer and help you identify what’s working, what’s not landing, what may be missing, and where the biggest opportunities are to make the talk stronger.
Sometimes you don’t need to throw out your keynote and start over.
You just need another set of experienced eyes to show you what you’re too close to see.
[Learn more about my Keynote Review and private speaker coaching here.]https://stacypederson.info/coaching/
