Every week, for 30 weeks each academic year, I give 15 hours of lecture, each hour of which I have spent at least 4 hours of preparation. I also prepare a set of questions and a visual outline will illustrations for each lecture.

At Berkun’s rate I would make $13.5 MILLION an academic year. I don’t even make 3 times what Berkum makes for just one lecture.

OK, I’ll take just half that since I do not have to get on a plane and travel. On the other hand, I’ll take it all. I deliver more than 450 different lectures; I bet Berkum has about 10 “set” lectures that he gives over and over again.

Maybe I should write a book. The content of his book, reviewed above, is what I learned in Debate Club as a freshman in high school. Thus I have been practicing these concepts of public specking for more then 40 years – and almost 150 days a year at that. I bet Berkum doesn’t have that kind of speaking schedule.

In one of my few years in college, I took a public speaking course with over 75 students in the class. My first speech I was very confident and really not nervous about my lecture as it was something I enjoyed talking about and was a subject I knew very well. So I was confident. But once I got up on the podium, and seeing all those eyes starring at me, everything just fell apart. Public speaking is something I’d love to get better at and I’ll definitely will read this book!

The first thing to do is ask yourself what about the topic excites you. If you’re not excited by the topic, odds are good you won’t be able to communicate why it’s important and interesting to anyone else. On the other hand, if you can feel excited or inspired by the topic, you can enjoy giving the presentation and share your excitement with the audience; that makes all the difference.

I find that when I remind myself why I’m doing the presentation, and remind myself that (by and large) I like my audience, that removes 90% of the pressure because the context becomes a dialogue or conversation with people I like and who I hope will like me, not a lecture to an audience that is there to criticize me.

Second, work until you understand the topic thoroughly. One of the biggest fears is that someone will ask you a question you can’t answer and that this will make you look like a fool. It’s never possible to know everything about a topic, and sometimes you’ll even run up against a troll who’s out to make themselves look good at your expense. But if you establish a friendly, helpful attitude right from the start, as I suggested earlier, the troll’s more likely to look bad than you are. That’s particularly true if you’re willing to admit your ignorance: the best response when you don’t know the answer is “here’s my gut impression, but to be honest, I’m not sure; leave me your e-mail address after the presentation and I’ll try to get you a better answer once I’m home again”.

The point about rapid pacing is correct, but misleading. You should never race through a presentation like you’re trying to sing a Gilbert and Sullivan “patter” song; on the contrary, you must speak at a brisk but unhurried pace, like you would in any other conversation. Of course, the overall presentation must not drag: present only the key points, and don’t belabor any point by endlessly supporting it with details. Present only the key points, and only the key details required to support those points.

Lastly, a point about brevity: Presentations must be as long as required to cover the required material, neither longer nor shorter. If you’ve been hired to give a full-day workshop, “concise” simply isn’t possible; 8 hours isn’t “concise” in any reasonable interpretation of the word. But do account for the attention span of your audience. Some excellent advice I’ve seen repeated by really good speakers is “think sitcom, not movie of the week”. Half an hour is a typical attention span, but in practice, for longer presentations such as half- or full-day workshops, you may need to think “mini-series”: a series of 1-hour presentations separated by breaks. This keeps the audience awake and interested, and gives them time to absorb what you’ve said.