Doing a TED talk is the quickest way to establish yourself as an expert and thought leader. After I did my TEDx talk, I heard from speaker bureaus I’d never worked with and my book sales soared, but mostly I ended up with a terrific video that expresses, as it says on the application, “an idea worth spreading.”
Here are 12 tips to help you find your idea worth sharing and compose your TED talk:
1. Identify your audience. TEDx talks are usually geared to a specific audience. Decide who would benefit from hearing your message, i.e. women entrepenuers, techies, realtors, bankers, maybe students.
2. On the TED application, focus on what problems your topic solves for the listeners. Don’t make the mistake of sharing YOU.
3. Consider the consequences of the problems that you stated. For example, if entrepreneuers are finding themselves stressed, what is the result of that stress? Connect your topic to issues of money, health, or relationships; those are things that matter to everyone.
4. Make it personal. Find your own story with a mess to success journey, indicating how you solved the very problem you chose to talk about.
5. Identify a specific scene in your story with a “Eureka Moment.” This is where you identified the problem and figured out how to solve it.
6. When you tell your story, be in it; don’t just tell it. It helps to act out the dialogue, reveal what you were thinking, and use present tense verbs to make it more dynamic. For example... “There I am...” Rather than, “There I was...”
7. Make the audience aware of your goal in your story, what was driving you.
8. Tell about the obstacles that got in the way of you getting what you wanted. They may be physical (such as traffic, weather, a presidential motorcade), other people, or internal obstacles such as childhood trauma.
9. After telling your story, give the audience specific actions so they, too, can have successful results.
10. When you give action steps, make sure you don't confuse them with results. For example, telling people to be more confident -- that's a result. A step towards being more confident would be: speak up at a meeting by asking questions.
11. Always end your talk with a call to action. Give the audience things they can actually do. Don’t say, “Go home and write thirty pages of your new book.” It’s better to say, "Picture your book signing. Ask yourself who and what do you need to appreciate.” Give the audience an assignment that is do-able in the moment.
12. When adding humor to your talk, keep it authentic. Don’t insert jokes. Relate to your audience and to yourself with humor that is relevant to you and to your topic.
More humor tips at JudyCarter.com
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