Turning Crisis Into Victory as a Keynote Speaker

Mark Schaefer writes:

In my career as a keynote speaker, I know that something can (and will) go wrong, and I like to think I’m prepared for anything. But after eight years as a keynote speaker, I came up against a crisis that turned into one of my most successful presentations ever. I wanted to share some lessons from a speaking disaster.

If you’ve ever seen one of my talks, you know I work hard to make it a very entertaining performance as well as something that is educational and inspirational. A big part of the entertainment value comes from my carefully-crafted visuals. I use photos to punctuate, animations to add sizzle, and graphics to teach and explain.

Slides also serve as course markers for my talk … it’s hard to stand in front of a crowd and tell a story for an hour without a few prompts along the way.

All those best-laid plans came to a crashing halt when the audio visual people could not get the visuals to project from my computer — or any computer — at a recent talk before several hundred sophisticated marketers in Boston.

It was time for my talk to start. The room was packed, hushed, and ready. The spotlight was on me. Three AV people were looking at each other in panic. I gently told them that it was time for them to get off the stage … I would handle it.

Click here to read how Mark turned a crisis into victory, along with tips you can use if this ever happens to you.

By the way (this is Bruce Hennes writing), I do nearly 60 talks a year.  And I’m always ready for the projector or PowerPoint to fail.  Not a problem.  I learned a long time ago that PowerPoint doesn’t give presentations – people do.