When you speak, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.
-Ron Tite …errrr …the Dalai Lama
Reader discretion is advised. Some readers may not appreciate a spiritual reference (oops – looks like we were late on that one…), profanity, valuable public speaking tips, why you should write a book and more. Don’t read this. Really. Go get a fresh coffee instead. You look tired.
In Partnership With is pleased to present a refreshing perspective with Ron Tite. You’ve seen him on stage as a host or a keynote speaker. You may have read one of his latest books. Or you may even be working with his team at Church+State which continues to expand, even this year. Discovering how this all unfolded is where we start.
Seeking a Method to the Madness
There was never any destination in mind. Ron thinks that’s really important. There was no vision for the future where this all would go. The current reality is simply a sum of all the experiences that have led here. Ron did not expect to be a comedian. He did not expect to be a speaker. He did not expect to work in advertising. To be an entrepreneur. To have his own agency. Nobody in his family had ever done any of those things. And he didn’t ever think that it was possible.
Slowly over the years – just incrementally – Ron chose to pursue experiences and opportunities that he found interesting and challenging. And that he always felt that there was a method to the madness for public speaking but he always wanted to know what the method was. So he trained at the Second City and started to do stand up comedy. Who does that!?
If you don’t try to get good at something, you’re never going to figure out the method to the madness.
Ron chose to do stand up because he wanted to experience what it was like – what one needed to do – to become really good at performing in front of people. From there, both comedy and professional creative opportunities kept coming up. He started as an account guy in advertising and rose through the years to be an Executive Creative Director at Euro RSCG. In 2011, he struck out on his own to start a new chapter which eventually evolved into Church+State.
Ron used to be a “comedian who knew about business” and now is considered “a funny business guy.” That’s an important distinction.
Speak Truth to Flower
Incredible insight and content is the most important aspect of public speaking. We’re all told to be powerful when we speak, we need to have a slick presentation to accompany the spoken delivery. While often true, you can have dreadful delivery or slides and still captivate the audience because the content is so bloody good.
Insight delivered with memorable and compelling delivery is where you can start to blossom. Set the audience up with comedy then silence the room and then you – BANG! – deliver with the key point.
When you speak, there has to be an aspect of inspiration to be better, because people want to feel that.
Quite frankly, there’s often an element of celebrity involved. Ron has seen some dreadful, horrible speeches delivered by celebrities that get great reviews. This is because people are in awe of just seeing a particular person onstage and crave what they have to say. And when you look at the content itself, there’s really nothing special there. But the fact that they have so much celebrity behind it means they’ve done something right to command such attention when they speak.
Tips to Speak Better… for the Rest of Us
Ron uncovered something when discovering the method to the madness in comedy. What great comedians do is they continually develop new material. But once they’ve got some gold, they repeat the gold. And that’s how you get better. Not by doing brand new stuff every single night but by perfecting bits and using the bits at every opportunity. Why is Chris Rock able to go and do a Netflix special and you can’t? Because he’s been working those bits for the past year, whereas most corporate speakers write a whole new speech every time.
The best comedians in the world don’t have the skill to deliver fresh content daily. Why would you expect yourself to when you speak?
You need to develop content for delivery two minutes at a time. Once you’ve got those two minutes down cold, use them every single time. For some reason, people hesitate – they feel it makes them a fraud. If 55 minutes of a 60 minute speech has been used for a year, how dare you not deliver them those golden 55 minutes?
Good to Great on Stage & in Print
There are a lot of people who say they’re interested in becoming a speaker. They’re on stage often but they they haven’t decided to fully commit to making it a revenue source. But if you’re going to do it… do it. And the way you do it is you get stage time and you become better and better and better and better. Treat it as a business. There’s no secret.
Just be so fucking good that people want to pay you to speak.
The same applies to the books Ron has written, including Everyone’s An Artist (or At Least They Should Be) and Think. Do. Say: Building Personal and Organizational Momentum in a Busy, Busy World.
Being published helps to get speaking gigs as does being a “celebrity” (quotation marks requested since he insists he’s not famous). When you have a book, there’s at least two more people who now know you.
As a published author, it’s just one more piece of credibility; celebrity by credibility.
That will lead to business in some way shape or form. Some are very clear on new client conversion rates as a result. Ron is the exact opposite. You could ask “what’s the ROI of your book?” and Ron has no idea, nor does he care to. He just knows that there is one.
Accelerating in the Middle of the COVID Corner
As a speaker, creative or business leader, effective communication is imperative. Leveraged as a device, metaphors and analogies are critically important because they can create clarity or illuminate situations where people may be normally hesitant to view. As a consultant, if you start questioning the profitability of a business, management will get their backs up. They’ll believe they’ve got more experience than you do and that you don’t know their particular line of work. But if you start with something that is completely outside of their realm of expertise, but something that they’re familiar with and that they know about, it’s more intriguing. It creates an openness where there wouldn’t have been one before.
The analogy that Ron’s been using when it comes to COVID is related to race car driving:
Anybody can pass on a straightaway but races are won in the corners. COVID is such a corner.
You start by slowing down as you enter the corner to gain control of the car. Most amateurs think you wait until the end of the corner to accelerate again. But professional drivers know if you want to win, it’s critical to accelerate in the middle of the corner. With the pandemic, we are in the middle of the corner and people have to start to accelerate.
By delivering the message in that way, you’re not getting people’s backs up. So they pay attention. When the payoff is something that they’ve never heard before, it’s really refreshing and has way more value. By looking at how the solution is crafted in a completely different place, there a transfer. An equal relevance across the two different situations.
Speak Easy: Two Ears and One Mouth
When Ron goes on a stage, he wants people to think right away that he’s either smart or funny. The way to do that is to leverage a “warm open.” SNL does the opposite with a “cold open” where they just start the show. A warm open is when you go on stage, and you say, “Hey everybody, how are you doing!? You know what – that last speaker was great. I really like that they talked about…”
The challenge and opportunity with a warm start is that it’s something that you could have never, ever had written beforehand. It becomes clear to the audience that you were paying attention and you’re responding to something that just happened. And ideally, you’re making it funny. By doing that, you end up slipping into your speech, without them even noticing. So you’ve shown them, “I am present. I’m original. I care.”
When audiences realize you’re simpatico, that gives you way more credibility since you are referencing a shared experience. Suddenly, the audience feels like, oh, you’re one of “us,” as opposed to coming from outside. That will make your connection even stronger. And then you can build from there to become their on-stage spiritual leader, channeling your inner Dalai Lama.
In Partnership With
Ron Tite is a best-selling author, speaker, producer and entrepreneur. As the founder of Church+State, he blurs the lines between art and commerce and was Named one of the “Top 10 Creative Canadians” by Marketing Magazine. In demand as a speaker all over the world, Ron speaks to leading organizations about leadership, disruption, branding and creativity.
Tim Bishop, CM is a multi-disciplined executive with a proven record of optimizing strategic efforts to expand the influence of leading organizations, such as the Canadian Marketing Association, Cineplex Entertainment, Lavalife.com, IMI International and Northstar Research Partners. In Partnership With is his latest focus to curate Canadian marketing experts to celebrate the power of strategic partnerships in a perspective-based content series.