Business presentations: do’s and don’ts for success.

Commical – Episode title: Business presentations: do’s and don’ts for success.

Published 19/04/2020 on Chasing Albert website, spotify and apple podcasts.

00:00 Marie
In 2019, I joined Pitch to Punchline, a stand-up comedy challenge for the media and marketing industry. Our mentor was the hilarious comedian Cam Knight. With some 20 years of stand-up under his belt, he has performed sellout shows across the country and received a stream of rave reviews. He also happens to be a former presentation trainer, so who better to talk to about how to engage an audience?

00:22 Marie: Oprah, Steve Jobs, Andrew Denton and, due to me, these guys are masters of communication. The rest of us, well, mainly you, because I’m a pro, fumble our way through. Commical examines this funny little thing called communication that can either tear us down or make us soar. Join me. I’m an amateur comedian and a communication expert. Join me and listen, learn and laugh through the experiences of my very talented guests. Welcome, Cam.

00:58 Guest: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

00:59 Marie: No one can see your thumbs up, mate.

01:01 Guest: Oh, sorry. I just gave you a thumbs up. And it’s a pleasure to be here. I mean, what else have I got going on while we’re in isolation? You’ve got me. This is how you get them. Come on my podcast. Everyone’s like, “Yes, please. I need to communicate with people now. I don’t have an audience. Help me, please.”

01:23 Marie: You have had a massive audience during this time, actually. You’ve been doing your QuaranTunes on Instagram. How’s that been going?

01:30 Guest: That’s been really rewarding and quite cathartic, and quite an amazing experience that I never thought would last more than a week. I’ve been doing that for two weeks now. I jokingly asked people to send in their song requests, and I started to play guitar and do covers. Then I just started jokingly dressing up to match each song. All of a sudden, I’m like, “Oh my God, I have to do wardrobe changes. I’m doing makeup.” I had to paint my face like Bowie for one song. I’m getting half naked. I’m doing all sorts of stupid stuff.

02:06 Guest: A lot of it, I’m tying the songs into coronavirus-related stuff or being isolated. So it turned into these comedy skits for songs. It was making people from all over the world laugh, and so many people reached out to me. People in lockdown in New York, or people in hospital, were saying, “Thank you so much. You made me laugh. That’s what I needed today.” It was so weird. It built this tiny little community in the last fortnight.

02:37 Guest: I never would have done music, or shown people that I can play guitar and sing, if it hadn’t been for what’s going on now. I was a bit too shy, I guess, for want of a better word. That’s such a weird thing to say as a comedian. But that was my own little private thing, that I played music, and now I’m sharing that. I feel like I’ve never been more connected with my followers than I have since doing this. So it’s been a weird blessing in disguise. It’s a weird way to experience this situation, but it has been quite lovely.

03:13 Guest: It’s been arduous. Jesus Christ, I’m working harder than I work normally. I did it for 10 hours yesterday for zero friggin’ dollars. Am I allowed to swear on this? It would have been better if I just said zero fucking dollars.

03:29 Marie: Sounds better when you swear.

03:32 Guest: Yeah, thanks. Okay, cool.

03:37 Marie: You haven’t been taking these songs lightly. You’re putting in a lot of work and a lot of preparation to get them right.

03:43 Guest: Yeah, it takes a long time. I want to get it right. I try and match whatever the people are wearing in the film clip, or I do some sort of pastiche or homage to what’s happening in the clip, or to whoever the musician is.

04:01 Guest: If it’s a Neil Diamond song where they’re saying something like “hands touching hands,” I’m like, “No touching,” and I get the Glen 20 out and spray it, or something like that. I try to relate it back to social distancing or what’s happening now, and that seems to be giving people a bit of a laugh.

04:20 Guest: I’m trying to put out slick songs on Insta Stories, but then once a week I drop the bloopers so they can see just how much it takes, how much I fail, and how much I obviously hate myself because I’m calling myself an asshole and a fucking dickhead repeatedly. I’m basically like my own Hollywood mum, whipping myself: “Get it right, you fucking dickhead.” Anyway, it’s funny.

04:50 Marie: How do you normally prepare? I mean, you’re obviously somebody who likes to prepare, and you take your craft very seriously. How do you normally prepare for going on stage?

05:02 Guest: Well, it’s funny. I never used to. I didn’t think that I was that prepared. I used to just drink and have fun, and it was a bit more rock and roll.

05:08 Guest: I didn’t think I had a problem with drinking, right? And I went to the AA website and had a look. They’ve got a little test on there. Did the test. Fucking smashed it. Got an A-plus, or an AAA-plus, and I’ve never had an A-plus in anything, so I had a couple of years to celebrate.

05:29 Guest: I think now it’s just a little bit different. It’s kind of hard to say now, because I can get on autopilot a bit easier. I’m accustomed to it, used to it, love it. I can just step up and go do it. It’s kind of second nature now. It just depends on the gig.

05:49 Guest: If it’s a TV gig, then it’s like, “Okay, I need to get this right. I need the wording absolutely perfect,” because I only get one shot at this and a limited amount of time. I might have a seven-minute spot or a ten-minute spot that they’re filming, so you want to go over your notes, go over your scripting, and rehearse it to yourself before you get there. But then also try not to get in your head about it. I know the gear. I wrote it. I’ve just got to get that first gag out, and if it gets that first laugh, boom, then I’m in it. Any other sort of gigs now, it’s kind of like: you just get up and off you go.

06:39 Marie: Do you remember a time when there was no real autopilot?

06:43 Guest: Oh yeah, like half of my career. Totally. It was adrenaline, drugs and alcohol just to fucking spur you on, you know?

06:53 Marie: And just a note to all my business listeners: please do not take drugs or drink alcohol before doing your corporate presentations. Although it could be more interesting if they did.

07:03 Guest: Well, yeah. Way off topic. But anyway, there’ll be a lot of people going, “Can we just circle back to…” There’ll be a lot of circling back in those fucking meetings and going around in circles.

07:19 Guest: When you’re starting out, you take a lot more risks, just trying out new material all the time in every place you go. You might come up with some half-baked idea that day and then get up and do it at a club where you probably shouldn’t. That’s where you’re meant to bring your gold, but you’ll happily burn that just to do new gear because you’re on a rush, and then it’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast.

07:47 Guest: Now, if I’m just doing a gig, I don’t really think about it. I don’t write out a set list anymore. I just let it happen naturally. I go out and start. I know there’s stuff in the bank, stuff in my mind. If I start doing crowd work and they say something that triggers material I might have, then I go that way. That’s the way the gig’s going to go now. That’s more enjoyable for me too, because it doesn’t feel like a constant script in the same order every night. They still get those bits, but in a different way, and that keeps things interesting for me.

08:50 Marie: You used to be a presentation trainer, is that right?

08:55 Guest: Yeah, yeah. I did it for about three or four years, I think. I trained heaps of people in banking firms and investment companies and tax firms. Foxtel was one of my main clients as well. Loads of different companies. It was corporate presentation skills. A basic presentation skills program, and I facilitated the day.

09:16 Guest: They would bring a prepared presentation, and we would work on that throughout the course of the day. A lot of the stuff I was training people in, I took on board personally as well, just in the way I structure my writing. It really changed the way I wrote shows. It changed the way I engaged with the audience on stage.

09:35 Guest: And when I was doing Pitch to Punchline, when I trained you, there was a bunch of stuff that I used from those presentation skills programs. I didn’t completely steal the bloody thing, but the same fundamental principles that I gained and taught, I passed on to you guys as well, because they’re really handy tools.

10:02 Guest: It was a good thing to do. It was weird. When I first started, I felt like a massive fraud because I was going into all these huge banking firms and all these cashed-up fucking people. I’m like, “What the fuck do you guys want to hear from me for? I talk about my dick for a living, and here I am telling you how to do a presentation. What the hell is going on? I should be as rich as you are, you assholes.”

10:34 Guest: But it was funny. I did it because I was employed by Foxtel for five years, hosting a bunch of shows. That’s where I cut my teeth in comedy and presenting and TV. Then it was weird and ironic to end up back at Foxtel teaching them all how to be better presenters, because I learned how to be a presenter at Foxtel. Full circle.

11:37 Marie: What were some things that you used to teach that you adopted yourself that people might find useful?

11:44 Guest: More than anything, structure. The way you structure a show. I took a lot from that: the start, the middle and the end, not going too far off topic, and doing a stronger opening to explain the premise or theme and the reasoning behind it. Definitely the structuring of shows, I got far more from the presentation skills program.

12:14 Guest: A lot of the other stuff I was teaching felt weird because I was teaching it without realising I understood it. When I first started, I didn’t think I understood it. And my boss was like, “It’s weird, because you have all of these things. The way that you present is second nature to you now, but these people don’t understand that.”

12:40 Guest: It’s like when you just asked, “How do you prepare?” and I’m like, “I don’t know. I just fucking get up there.” But then there’s the question: how do you do that? I guess it’s just in me now because I’ve been doing it for 20 years. I don’t really think about the theoretical side of it anymore. So that was a key learning for me. It helped me understand how to word what it is that I do and what it is that I know, and that was kind of affirming as well.

13:25 Marie: You’re a natural storyteller, Cam, and that’s the style of comedy that you do so well as well.

13:30 Guest: Yeah, I mean, I like that sort of comedy. That was the kind of comedy I always gravitated towards. Richard Pryor, to me, was just a god. The way he told stories and brought life to things, I thought he was incredible. I still think he’s incredible. I always thought, “I want to write like that.” There are stories in there, but they’re funny and peppered with all these weird jokes.

13:57 Guest: I like surreal stuff as well. I like bringing life to things that aren’t real and doing act-outs, and that’s what Richard does as well. I studied acting, so I guess that was part of the outlet too. It all sort of came together in a weird way.

14:15 Marie: Well, you’re also very good at the physical side of comedy too. In presentations, some people feel really limited, or they feel really tight and uncomfortable with the idea of movement.

14:30 Guest: When I feel uncomfortable, I don’t like being still. Some of my mates who are comedians don’t want to move at all behind the mic stand. They just stand there and deliver it. Whereas I’m like, “I’ve got to move, man.” If I’m on a big stage, I’ve got to take it. I’ve got to fill it. It feels weird to be limited. I feel limited too if I do corporates and have to wear a suit. Even in the suit, I’m like, “Oh, this feels like a prison.”

15:02 Marie: You just strip on stage and make it part of your show.

15:05 Guest: Let’s do the set with one testicle hanging out. Yeah, it’s great. It’s the only way to do it, mate. That’s why I always get them to pay me before I do the gig.

15:16 Marie: Yeah, that’s a good idea.

15:18 Marie: You are somebody who’s just a massive ball of energy, and your energy fills the room. So it’s one thing that you’re very funny, but you also bring a joy and a mood to the room. How do you do that?

15:38 Guest: Firstly, thank you. But also, I don’t know. I can be totally drained and exhausted from a full day with the kids, and then as soon as I get on stage it just goes boom. It’s all gone. I feed off audiences. If I can get the audience into a state where they’re feeling energised and enthused and happy, then I get that energy back, and I can give it back to them in spades as well. So it’s this weird symbiotic relationship.

16:15 Guest: I also like creating a vibe. I like creating a memorable vibe where you come out and it’s like boom. I want you to be hit in the face with it and just go, “What the fuck? This is crazy. It’s fun and silly and I feel good.” I like creating joy. I don’t want to get up and just talk about sad stuff or be an asshole. I rib people pretty harshly too, but that’s just a bit of ribbing, and then it’s like, “Nah, you’re right, mate,” and we’re fine. I never take it too far.

16:55 Guest: If I’m tired, I really have to power up and get them going. Once they’re going, I’m like, “Okay, cool. I feel good now,” and I forget about it all.

17:29 Marie: So let’s talk about you doing a tour with the army, right? Did you go visit some of our troops somewhere really out there?

17:41 Guest: Yes, yes, I did. I went to the UAE, and I secretly went to another country that I’m apparently not to say I went to, but it starts with I and ends with Q. We were over there for two weeks performing for the Aussie troops and the Kiwis and a bunch of other different nations. It was hands down one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, actually.

18:10 Guest: We got to do all the training, to shoot guns, and if you got an abdominal wound… to be honest, if you got amputated in the leg, I could give you a tourniquet. I would fix you. We learned all of that. It was pretty cool. We did some great gigs. We were over there with four comedians and two bands, and it was excellent. Really good company and a really interesting experience.

18:38 Marie: When you write, does content come to you any time, anywhere, or do you find you need to set the scene and get your head in the right place before you sit down to start actually writing some material?

18:54 Guest: Depends what it is. There’s a lot of stuff in my phone notes that’s just full of half-baked ideas, basically. Then when I get a bit of time, I go, “Okay, I’d better compile some of this and see if there’s anything in it.”

19:11 Guest: When we went over to perform for the troops, all of us were writing on the fly from our experiences day to day, because they were so different and varied, and because we were completely out of our league. We were in a completely different world. We were doing all these activities and then gigs at night, so all of us were trying to write four to five minutes of gear per day just to get some gags out about that experience, the people we met and the things we’d done. That worked really well in our favour.

19:52 Guest: Most of the time, if I’m writing a new hour, I just spend the year jotting half-ideas down once festival season is over. By the end of that year I’ll sit down, take a good couple of months to piece it all together and see what I’ve got. Then I’ll start trialling it out, going out to open mics and stuff like that, just seeing what works and what doesn’t, same as anyone.

20:39 Marie: Such a luxury for a comedian. I know, I hate open mics. I find them so rough a lot of the time.

20:51 Guest: Yeah, big time. But you’ve got to do it. I made you guys do it. I told you, “There’s only so much I can do putting on an open mic for you, but you’ve got to go and die.”

21:01 Marie: Yeah, oh yeah. And boy, did I die. “Eddie Murphy — who likes Eddie Murphy here? Chris Rock, Chris Rock.” So I binge-watched it a week later, and about five wines in, I found myself on stage for the very first time. It was fucking terrifying. But 30 seconds in, I actually had people laughing. They were pissing themselves, and I’m like, “Fuck them. I’m going to teach comedy myself.”

21:38 Marie: And then, at that very moment, the alcohol bit me in my unshaven ass. I just lost myself. Completely lost myself. I became like a cheap white Chris Rock impersonator, and I started doing things like my eyes were bulging as I was talking to the audience, and I was screaming at them and saying shit like, “Get that bitch out before I get it out my goddamn self.” I was just trying to tell the story about when I gave birth to my daughter.

22:20 Guest: And I said, “You’ve got to go out and find those rooms, and you need to bomb hard and know what that feels like, because then it’ll make the Opera House feel like heaven.” It’ll also make you work out how to trim the fat and work on your gear instead of just thinking, “Oh, I’m so funny,” because everyone in the room laughed and everyone in that controlled open mic environment — where half the people were there to support you — laughed.

22:51 Guest: I needed you to die. But we all need to die and then rebuild and rewrite and come out stronger and better. Man, it sucks. It’s awful. It’s an awful feeling. But you have to do it. I still do it. Shit doesn’t work. Okay, I laugh now though. I laugh if it doesn’t work because I’m like, “Okay, cool. I won’t do that again.”

23:13 Marie: Do you know what it taught me from a presentation point of view? In corporate presentation scenarios, your marketing team develops your content, you get the deck, you run it through a couple of times with the marketing manager, they say yay or nay, give you a little feedback, and then you get on stage and give this presentation.

23:38 Marie: What I learned through the open mic process is just how important it is to test your presentation in front of different people, if you can. It’s no different. It’s about what the audience wants to hear from you and what they’re going to respond to.

24:00 Guest: Yeah. And that teaches you what works when and what works where. If something’s happened in the news and then you get up and talk about something very similar that’s affected a lot of people, you can come off completely tone-deaf. You’ve got to be keyed in.

24:24 Guest: If I do material that I know has worked countless times previously and it doesn’t work that night, I’m like, “Well, that’s not me, but I’ll get you with something else.” It’s not that joke. It’s just a different crowd, and they like different stuff. So you’ve got to work that out for yourself.

24:43 Guest: And being on stage is your rehearsal. There are only so many times you can keep saying it to yourself in your bedroom or pacing around outside. You need to know how that works properly in front of an audience to figure out what words work, how the sentence works, the timing, the pace, all of those things that are fundamental to joke telling. You’re not going to get that without an audience.

25:18 Guest: So you have to keep doing gigs to get those bits better and better and tighter until it’s a real good little nugget. So many people are like, “When I see you guys perform, I just figure it’s new material.” Well, sometimes it is, half of it might be. But there’s also a lot of stuff that isn’t, and it’s still killer because I’m still doing it.

25:42 Guest: There are old bits where I might have had a four-minute bit, and then I’ll dust that off and see what I can do with it again. After doing it for a few months, it can turn into an eight-minute bit because I’m sitting in it, adding tags, extending it, finding a new act-out, because I’m rehearsing it on stage in front of an audience. I’m taking risks by improvising within that set, and that grows into something bigger. You don’t get that at home as much.

26:24 Guest: Some people stick to it verbatim every time, whereas I’m always looking to see where else I can go with a bit, even if it’s an old bit. I’m always like, “Where else can I go? What am I going to do with this?”

26:51 Marie: What happens if you die or stuff up during an actual performance in front of hundreds or thousands of people? Has that happened to you? Have you forgotten a line?

27:06 Guest: You just keep going. No one knows. It’s not like you go, “Oh, sorry, I just want to fucking go back a bit. I forgot that bit.” No one’s going to know if you’ve missed a line or a part of it, if it’s a chunky bit or whatever. It’s annoying. It’s really fucking annoying. You’re like, “Ah, I forgot that bit.” But you care more about that than anybody else does. No one’s going to remember that.

27:45 Marie: Yeah. In presentations, I’ll say to my client, if you miss something, just keep going. But if what you’ve missed is an important point, it’s okay to stop and go back to make that point. But that’s obviously a very different scenario to comedy.

28:02 Guest: Yeah, not really in comedy. If you’re hosting, I guess, and it’s the first block and then in the second block you’re reopening the second half, you could come out and say, “You know what? I actually forgot to mention this,” and do it then. But if you’re doing an actual set, you wouldn’t stop it.

28:27 Guest: That’s also the same stuff I got from those presentation skills courses: audiences won’t know that you’ve stuffed up unless you tell them, and most of the time they won’t know that you’re nervous unless you tell them. Unless your non-verbal messages give you away — if you’re fidgeting, picking, playing with the mic cord, not maintaining eye contact, looking down at the ground — all of those non-verbals give you away. It’s up to you to be that wall and push it down. Don’t let them see it.

29:20 Marie: Have you had anyone write content for you and then you’ve tried to do that in stand-up? Do you find that you could deliver anybody else’s content the same way you do your own?

29:36 Guest: When I was hosting a show on Foxtel called Stand Up Australia, it got to a point where I needed help from a couple of different people, because we ended up doing about 120 episodes and I was burnt out. It was just being me and another guy writing every week, trying to come up with eight to ten minutes of material every week for the show, and that was really hard to do.

30:08 Guest: So we reached out to a few other comedians and tried to get them to help us write material. And yeah, it felt weird. It felt foreign. It felt like wearing someone else’s shoes. That was the only time it’s really felt that way. Sometimes when you present or host shows, there are things they make you say. It’s in the script, but I wouldn’t talk like this. And they’re like, “Well, this isn’t for you. This is for them.”

30:54 Marie: Did it affect your performance of it?

30:57 Guest: Well, I just feel like sometimes some of the stuff you do in free-to-air presenting can be a little saccharine—

31:12 Marie: I’m nodding, but I don’t know what that word means.

31:18 Guest: Yeah, it can be a bit basic and safe and sweet, and sometimes I felt like it wasn’t really genuine. There’s a real art to writing scripts for TV, and they know what they’re doing, and you just sort of say it. So it doesn’t really matter who I am here or whatever. I’m not a big fan, to be perfectly honest.

31:46 Marie: It’s funny, because I find with some of the people that I train in presentation skills, if the presentation is being developed on behalf of the speaker, the speaker never does it as well as when the speaker has written their own content.

32:11 Guest: Yeah, that’s kind of true.

32:15 Marie: Marketing might have stuff they want to talk about specifically, or messages that they want you to land, and that’s fine. But I feel like the person doing the speaking needs to at least own the story, the package and the journey in which they tell that story. Otherwise it just seems contrived. The person just doesn’t seem as comfortable.

32:41 Guest: A lot of the time, particularly if they’re doing numbers, it’s really boring and they’re just showing graphs and running through data. They don’t care, so there’s no real flair or personality they can add to that, which is kind of difficult and disappointing for them, I guess.

33:01 Guest: Most people need to apply their own personality to these things. They let you apply your personality when you’re presenting, and I see TV shows that do that as well, but you very rarely stray from the path, so to speak. Sometimes that makes you present in a way that is really straight, and that can be limiting. You’re playing that straight guy in a nice outfit and it doesn’t feel genuine to me.

33:37 Guest: So people say, “Why do you do it?” And I’m like, “Money, that’s fucking it. Why else would I be here?”

33:58 Marie: How many more QuaranTunes have you got left to do?

34:07 Guest: I just keep going. I don’t know if this is ever going to end, man. I don’t know. Even if we ever come out of isolation, I’m still going to be doing them, because people keep hitting me up. So I don’t mind. I’ll keep doing it as long as people keep asking for them. It’s fun to do.

34:39 Marie: There’s a massive amount tuning in. Thank you very much. They’re a lot of fun to watch.

34:43 Guest: Well, I’m glad. They’re fun to do.

34:48 Marie: I loved your Bohemian Rhapsody, and your teeth falling out killed me. That was hilarious.

34:53 Guest: There’s always some stupid thing that happens to me like that, where I’m like, “This is perfect.” You can’t script that.

35:01 Marie: You didn’t script that?

35:06 Guest: Honestly, no. My teeth fell out of my mouth while I was singing, and it was like, that is the best thing that could have happened.

35:17 Marie: And to be clear for everybody listening, Cam doesn’t wear false teeth. They were props.

35:25 Guest: Yeah, a prop pair of teeth. They were my kids’ rubber teeth. They made me look like Freddie Mercury singing Bohemian Rhapsody, and then at that huge moment — “Mama…” — they just fell out. That was excellent. You can’t write that shit.

35:45 Marie: On my honeymoon, we went on a boat trip, and the tour guide did something, wrapped up, and his teeth went flying — the full top plate went flying into the water — and he had to dive after them. It was so funny for us.

36:07 Guest: I was doing a gig one time and this woman laughed so hard her glass eye fell out of her head.

36:14 Marie: Cam, that’s not true.

36:18 Guest: It is true. We had to stop the show and try and help her find a glass eye.

36:24 Marie: Are you freaking kidding me?

36:27 Guest: No. Other comics have had it happen too. It’s very good quality.

36:39 Marie: That is totally what we want — except in a corporate scenario, let’s hope so. The things that we want to make sure people learn are: don’t take drugs, don’t drink too much alcohol before presenting, and don’t lose an eye.

36:53 Guest: Yeah. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. It’s still fun and games if someone loses an eye, that’s for sure. But definitely don’t get inebriated. I’ve been sober for three years, so, I mean, you know. But I said to you guys, if you need to have a drink, have a drink. If you need to do something that would normally settle your nerves, go and do that. But don’t take it too far and get messy.

37:27 Guest: I’ve been absolutely shitfaced on stage, but after a while I tried to limit it to just a couple before I went on, then after the gig it went to crazy land. Now I don’t even think about it. Do whatever you need to do. I’m not going to preach to people, but I find performing sober is way better for me personally.

37:52 Marie: Good on you. Three years — here’s to many, many more. Thank you so much for joining me during your isolation time. I’ve taken you away from your music and from Netflix.

38:04 Guest: No, I’m having a night off. Everyone can enjoy my bloopers tonight. It’s just me hating on myself in the bloopers, which is far more entertaining. I’m giving my voice a break. I’ve got my boys here, so I don’t want to wake them up. So yeah, it’s just me and Netflix tonight. Man, Netflix has been the saviour. Just finished Tiger King. Just finished Tiger King last night. Before that I was watching Ozark. I don’t know what I’m going to watch tonight. I’ve got to have a look and see.

38:37 Marie: Ozark, yeah, it’s great.

38:42 Guest: Yeah, it’s good. Good writing. It’s really good writing. I think I’m going to watch a weird Polish crime thriller called The Mire tonight, just for something different.

38:55 Marie: Okay, let me know how it goes.

38:57 Guest: I will. I will.

39:01 Marie: Thanks so much, Cam. Have a good one, happy isolation life. And that’s Commical for this week. If you’d like to join the show, suggest a topic, or ask me a question, hit me up on Instagram at Marie L——, or email me at comicalpodcast@gmail.com. Thanks so much for listening. See ya.