 I want to say welcome today, everybody, to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're so delighted that you are here with us. And today we have the fabulous Rick DeGruel on back with us. He was one of our very first guests back in the day when we first started now, almost three years ago, actually more than three years ago. And welcome back, my friend. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me back today. Well, you know, Rick, you are one of our favorites for all of the things that you do in our community that we get to see you do. You have a national presence. Bottom line, this all comes down to communications and how you speak. And so we thought, wow, this is a really great opportunity. As you mentioned, we're getting back out there. So we're really excited to have you give us some tips and maybe some refreshers on how we can be doing a better job of public speaking. In the nonprofit world, it's so important, right? I mean, the ability to tell your story, whether it's to donors, grants, just the world at large so they understand your mission, if you can't get out there and publicly tell that story, you've got a bit of a problem. And more importantly, you want to do it effectively. You want to tell the story of your nonprofit effectively to help it move forward. Absolutely. Well, let's let us tell our story really quickly. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, Jared Ransom, my nonprofit nerd friend and co-host of the nonprofit shows. Off today, she's actually traveling to Las Vegas where we're going to be broadcasting live from the next two days at the AFP ICON conference. So if you're in the neighborhood, check us out and stop by the booth. We're going to actually be broadcasting from the Blumerang booth, so check us out. Again, we want to thank all of our nonprofit supporters and sponsors. Without them, we would not be here. We want to express our gratitude for Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, the nonprofit nerd, Fundraising Academy, nonprofit Atlas, nonprofit thought leader, and staffing boutique. If you've missed this episode or you want to see any of our more than 500 episodes that are in archive, you can find them on YouTube, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Vimeo. And not to be undone, but wait, there's more. We are now uploading all of our current episodes in podcast format. So queue us up wherever you get your streaming. OK, again, as I mentioned, tomorrow, which is going to be Tuesday and Wednesday, Jared Ransom will actually be in the Blumerang booth at AFP icon conference. The very first major conference that's been going on since the pandemic. Stop by during our live remote. She would love to meet you. And maybe she'll even pop you on there. It'll be a lot, a lot of fun. OK, Rick DeBrule. rickdebrule.com has all of your books, which is super cool because you are an author. And I've loved reading some of your books and checking out more about the behind the scenes, everything from crisis management to public speaking. Check out rickdebrule.com to get this information. OK, public speaking. Why do we need it before we move into speaking tip number one? I've been doing too much talking. Well, and it's funny because one of the things I often talk about is making sure that you, when you're going through and giving your presentation, that you use brevity, right? Yeah. You don't overextend yourself. I'm a big fan of making sure that you pay attention to the clock. If somebody gives you five minutes, three minutes, 10 minutes, that you respect that time. And you do that for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I always dread when somebody says, well, they've given me five minutes, but I won't take nearly that long. And I can almost guarantee you, when they say that, they're going to go at least 10. But you've got an audience, and they're giving you time. And you have to respect their clock. If you're lucky enough, you can get a full hour to talk to a Rotary Club meeting or whatever it may be. They've got someplace else they've got to go, or maybe they've got they get food or whatever else. So I always say, respect the time. If you can tell your story a little briefer, do it that way. And what I always, I'm always a little bothered by people who say, well, but my story is too complex to tell in 90 seconds or three minutes or five minutes. Like, no offense, if you can't boil it down to brevity and to have that, then you need to really work at that. It's really important that you can do that. So as I often point out, the first thing in public speaking is make sure that you know how to boil it down into something simple and short, and then expand as necessary. So Rick, you come to us with a broadcasting background that's remarkable. I mean, we see three Emmys behind you in your office, studio office. It seems to me that the majority of modern communication in the broadcast realm is 90 to 120 seconds. When we talk about the packages or the stories, is that accurate and is that kind of where we should be? Or actually it's 90 to 120 seconds will be long. These days it's 60 to 75 seconds is probably most of the stories that are done. You know, as I often point out, when I was back in my news career, my job every day was to put 20 pounds of sugar in a one pound bag. And to be honest with you, what you have to do is the first thing you have to understand is you gotta scrape 19 pounds away. If you try to put too many pounds of sugar in the bag, the bag's just gonna tear, right? It's not gonna look good. And the same thing is true in people's presentations when they're doing a presentation and telling the story of their organization. If you're given three minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it may be, the first thing you need to do is say, okay, what do I need to scrape away? So I get down to the core elements of what it is I want to say and what it is I want to do. And I'm a big fan, once again, of breaking it down to something that's really simple and then expanding it out. It's easier once you get it broken down to the one minute version to add another minute or add another two minutes. If you're trying to struggle with 10 minutes in it, now you're trying to have to crunch it into three, boy, it gets pretty problematic. And that's where in public speaking, you begin to make mistakes, right? If suddenly you realize, I can't get through all this, I've got too many slides or whatever it may be, that's where you start to rush, you start to fumble, you start to look like you don't know what you're talking about. So making sure that you know what the core of your presentation is, the core of your speech is, allows you to be more comfortable and more relaxed while you're doing it. I love it. Okay, well, I'm all in on public speaking tip number one, public speaking tip number two. Can it be better than number one? Well, so I mean, these are the four things. I want you to, I want people to write down these four things and these are, I call them the four elements of public speaking. It's earth, air, water, and fire. It's really important to think about this. And I'm gonna start off by talking about earth. And what I mean is I want you to, when you give a speech of any kind, I want you to be grounded, right? If there's a podium, I'm a big fan of using the podium, especially if there's a microphone on it. But too many times I've been in rooms where somebody's at the front and they don't want to use the microphone. And I actually was at a presentation where somebody at the front of the room, it was a large room, there was a microphone there and he said, well, I don't need this. You can hear me just fine in the back of the room. The guy next to me actually said out loud, we can't hear you very well back here. The guy in the front of the room couldn't hear that and just powered on and we could barely hear him in the back. If there's a microphone in the room, use it. But going back to land, use that podium, right? Grip it, put your notes there, make sure your feet are kind of at a good steady point so you're not rocking back and forth. So use the land, use the earth that you've got to kind of steady yourself, to ground yourself so you've got a foundation. If you're a really good public speaker, if you're one of those people who can seamlessly move across the front of the room, great. But if you're like most people and it's a skill you haven't completely mastered yet, then you wanna have that podium, maybe a table, whatever it may be, you wanna be grounded in such a way and don't just wander around the front of the room, right? If you're going to move, move with purpose. All right, so that's element number one. Element number two is air and I'm actually talking about the ability to breathe. I often tell people before you start your presentation, make sure you take a good, deep breath. And that does two things. First off, gets air in your lungs so you're not running out, especially at the beginning of your presentation. You'd hate to think that right when you start, you kind of run out of breath. But it also gives you a moment to think, especially if you're in the middle of your presentation. Maybe you've been whipping along and you need to transition, it's okay to take a breath. And when you take that breath, not only do you fill your lungs with air, but it kind of recenters you and it gives your brain a chance to think about where am I going next? That breath may only take a moment, but it's amazing how fast your brain can think in that moment and get things going onto the next item. So once again, air is really important. Let's talk about element number three. Element number three is really simple, it's water. Right next to me right now, I've got my big tumbler of water. What you don't want to do when you give your presentation is suddenly be thirsty and have no water nearby, right? There's nothing, you've been in those presentations where suddenly somebody's like, man, do we have a water anywhere? And your entire presentation has to grind to a halt. All the momentum you've got going because you got dry mouth and you don't have, it doesn't mean you have to use the water that's next to you. But that way, if it's there, and I almost always make sure, I tend to not kind of part camel. I don't drink a lot in terms of having water necessary, but I always make sure I have it there with me just in case. And going back to that time when your brain can think, you'd be amazed when you're taking that sip of water, you'd be amazed what my brain can think of about, okay, I said this, I need to say this, oh yeah, don't forget this, your brain can really work. And the audience is totally on board. They realize you're just having to drink, okay, they don't realize your mind is racing through all these things. Excuse me, there's clear in my throat. All right, so we've gone through earth, air, water, and the last thing, the last element of public speaking is fire. And I'm not talking about actual torching anything. I'm not gonna have smoke at the front of the room. But what I want you to have is passion, right? I mean, we're talking about the nonprofit world. If you can't be passionate about what you do, you're kind of in the wrong business right here. So it's really important to make sure that you're passionate about what it is you're talking about. And most importantly, that the audience senses your passion. They sense that fire. If you're excited about it, if you're passionate about it, they're going to be passionate about it. On the other hand, if you're not, you're just kind of droning. And we've all heard those people, right? And some people do have kind of a droning monotony about the way they talk. I'm Catholic, we had this one priest, so I loved him, he was great. And he just had this drone. I'm like, get excited, go up and down during the course of what you're talking about. But unfortunately, he just kind of drone. And then he would stop. He didn't even kind of have a big finish. And so he was like, oh man, have some passion. Because trust me, if you don't have passion for what you're talking about, your audience is not going to feel the passion. They're not gonna feel the importance of your cause and the story that you want to tell. Right. And I agree with you. That's one of the things that in our green room chatter we were talking about. It's tough to be in the nonprofit sector. It's tough to make a living. It's tough to go before your family and say, this is the path I'm gonna take for a lot of people. It requires passion because it is hard. And so you need to have that. And I love that idea about not being afraid to communicate that, because ultimately it's gonna be one of your most valuable tools. Not just not be afraid. It needs to be your first and most important tool that you bring. And we've all met those people who are founders of organizations who have that passion. And sometimes it's just a matter of saying, okay, you have the passion. Now, how can you effectively speak that passion? Right. And how do you share? So I'm loving all these tips. I think already they're helping me. I can tell you that the phone is starting to ring, the emails are starting to come in about coming back and doing public speaking. And so I'm really moving along with this. And I can see myself, even with my own work, I can improve. What is gonna be tip number three? So I've got many tips. But one thing I wanna go to is what I call psychic numbing. And when we're in the nonprofit world, there are almost every organization is working with some great cause. It doesn't matter what it is. And you need to understand that when you're speaking to your audience, when you're telling your story, you have to avoid using such big, huge problems that the people you're speaking to get numb. If you tell them that there's 24 million homeless people that you need to help, I can't help 24 million people. I mean, if you tell me about the fact that the people in Ukraine are fleeing and there's 10,000 people that didn't help today, it just overwhelms me. And we all have these problems of being overwhelmed with that. And so I refer to it as psychic numbing. It's an actual phenomenon. I mean, I didn't coin the term. What you need to do as a nonprofit, when you're doing your presentation, when you're speaking is bring it down to a much smaller level. Talk about the fact that tonight, there is a 15-year-old girl who's a runaway, who's managed to get away from her pimp and who's spending the night behind a circle K because she doesn't have a sleeping bag. She doesn't have a place to stay. But there's an organization that helps those teens. And if we can just give a little bit more money, we can find that girl. If we had one more vehicle, we could go out tonight, we could find her, we could put her in a bed, we could get her back on the road to restoration. If you talk about the one person, the three person, the five people, what your money can do, what your donation can do, then we get past the psychic numbing of the problem. And it doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about the big numbers, but you always wanna bring it down and make that connection between your audience. I often tell people when they're doing presentations for nonprofits, what you really wanna do is you want to make your audience, the people you're speaking to, the hero, right? Their donation, their tax credit, whatever it may be, that $500, $20, $100,000, whatever it may be, is going to save somebody's life. It's going to feed a child. It's gonna get that 15-year-old girl from behind that circle K, find her a place to stay. It's like you've got a cape. You're pointing to those people in the audience going, tonight, you are going to make a difference. And if you help them make that connection, you help them feel like they're a hero, that they've done something, that they're $25 as piddly as it seems, made a difference, you've reached across. Now, in a perfect altruistic world, they should be doing it just because it's wonderful to do, right? But what we need to do as a speaker is help them understand that they are the hero. They're the superhero. Right. I love the way you have framed this. And I think that the other piece of why I'm so intrigued with this is, Rick, because there are 1.8 million nonprofits registered in this country. So in essence, there's a lot of choice for that $25, right? Right. Or that 1 million or 1 billion. There are a lot of choices. And so I really love how you framed that up to say, we can be the hero, we can have impact. And I think this is one of those things that's been an interesting discussion when you see some of these mega donors, it almost in some ways creates some disparity between that actual donor that's like, well, hell, 25 bucks, why bother? It's not, what is that gonna do when you're hearing about all this large S? But I love, love, love what you said. I think that's a great approach. And for some reason in the nonprofit sector, we seem to have moved away from that. We're focusing on the big, big, big numbers. So this is an interesting concept that lawyers use in trials, right? When they're looking at the jury, they actually try to think, okay, how can I turn the jury into a hero? How can I turn these people into somebody who does the right thing for society? And really it's the same thing. I mean, and if we go back to like a $25 donor, of course, how much can that accomplish? But we all know as, in the nonprofit world, it gets that name in the database. It gets that, maybe they're $25 today, they're $100 tomorrow, they're $1,000 a year from now, or 10 years from now, you can build them up, you get them in. And if you can show them that they're $25, and when we talk about public speaking at the end of the day, the most important thing to remember is that you're telling a story, right? Your job is to tell a story. And it's got a beginning, it's got a middle, and it's got an end. And I can talk about the story arc and all the way stories are built, but at the end of the day, your job, and honestly, it doesn't matter what kind of presentation you're doing. You could be doing the dollars and cents presentation for the board or for some grant company. At the end of the day, even the dollars and cents, the budget is a story. How did the money come in? How did, what do you do with it? It's all a story. And if you can, if people can relate to stories, I go back to, this is my mantra in life. Words motivate people, stories inspire them. If you just say words, so they're just words. We hear words all the time. But if you tell me a story, I mean, think about the movies you've seen that to this day move you because they were such great stories. That ability to not just have words, but to motivate them and inspire them with the story. And if what you're doing in your public speech, in your speech before a rotary club, a board, a grant, whatever it may be, just a chance to be on TV, if you can tell a story that people can relate to, that people can be inspired by, then you can bring them in. Right. I love that. And it seems to me too that that's really authentic in that it allows people to understand what the journey is and what the real work is being done. Because I think sometimes we lose sight of that, really understanding what some of these people engaged in whatever need, what their journey has been, because sometimes we just can't relate to it. Right. And so we move on to maybe something we can relate to. And let's face it. I mean, if you give a presentation before 100 people, like you mentioned, there's 1,800 nonprofits out there, 18,000 nonprofits, whatever it is. 1.8 million. 1.8 million. I've already gotten psychic numbing on it right now. 1.8 million nonprofits. We're all, some people love animal causes, some people have people causes, some people have children causes. If you have 100 people in the room, you're not going to get all 100. If you get 10 or 15 or 20, and that's your goal. And as I often talk about when I'm giving speeches, look for those faces in the crowd that are nodding, right? And those are the people you really want to play to. For whatever reason, you've said something that's connected with them and you see their eyes kind of come alive and you see their head kind of nod a little bit. Boy, those are the people you really want to play to and make sure that you're feeding off those people. And honestly, I always say, as a speaker, a lot of people are afraid of public speaking, right? It's just that joke that, speaking is America's public number one fear, which by the way, it's not. There's a Chapman University over in Southern California has an annual thing where they go through and find out what people's greatest fears are. And it is not. And in fact, the greatest fear that people have is corruption, and it goes all the way down. And then I think speaking is like number 56 or 57 and it's behind what the good news is, it's above dying. But speaking isn't quite the, no, don't get me wrong, if you're afraid of public speaking, it's important to you. But don't assume you're afraid of public speaking because it's America's worst public fear, right? It's not, okay? So, but as I often say, how do you build confidence? Well, the first thing you do when you're in a crowd is look for those heads that are nodding, right? Feed off the energy of the people. When you're speaking in front of a group, I don't care who you are, you've been invited to that group. The first thing you should do is you have confidence for a couple of reasons. You were invited there to speak because you are an expert on a topic, right? They didn't invite you to just talk about brain surgery unless you're a brain surgeon or rocket science. They invited you to talk about your nonprofit. So you should feel confident. Audiences want you to succeed. They want you to do well. How many people in the audience going, I hope this guy melts down. Boy, this would be fun if he just has a conniption fit. No, no, it's like they want you to do well. They're rooting for you. And look for those faces in the audience who are not, oh yeah, that's interesting. I like that. And feed off that energy. If the more you do that, the more you become confident and the more it helps you as you're going along. I love that, Rick. And I think that's a great way to kind of, and we don't have that much time left, but I like that it makes you as a speaker more of a participant in the process. That you're not just getting up there and trying to jam all this information out. It kind of ties almost to your very first tip of, be brief, be concise, and then allow the moment to build. And if you're not, as we say, reading the room, that's tough. Yeah, I have to read the room. Reading the room is critical. It seems hard, like when you're public speaking, you're so drilled down and maybe I'm speaking for myself, but you're so focused on what you gotta get out, what you gotta get out, that reading the room can be a challenge. Yeah, and it will, if you can't read the room, you're going to end up giving the wrong speech to the wrong group of people. You walk into a room, you wanna see who's nodding, when they're nodding, why they're nodding. Now, I've been doing public speaking my entire life. I love when I get those people in the back of the room whose arms are crossed. They have that scowl look on their face. Now, where I tell most public speakers, don't look at them, look at the nodding heads. I'm the exact opposite. I like to look at that guy in the back whose arms are crossed, going, okay, come on. How can I win you? What can I say? I look for the things I say that, when he starts to nod a little bit like, oh yeah, now I got him. Now I got the whole group. But that's kind of an advanced skill. So you have to be cautious about doing that in the beginning. Oh my gosh, I hear you on that one. I kind of have to cop to that. I want to, before we let you go, you know, I don't have a slide for this, but you've written several books. And one of my favorite books that I have of yours, and it's actually on my desk, is really the Crisis Communications book that you've written. And could you share with us some of the things that you've authored? I know they're available on your website, but briefly before we let you go. Yeah, hang on. I've got a lot of luck back there. I should have had it still prepared for this, but I've got two books. Awesome. First is called Communicating at the Right Speed. And this deals with just the importance of communication, organizational communicating. It's actually a really, you could read this book in 45 minutes, but it's a workbook and it's designed with, it's called Micro-Learning. Each set of pages is a lesson and you're supposed to go through and do the micro lessons. And as you do the micro lessons, it then gives you the ability to kind of improve your communication skills. And the other is the Insiders Guide to Media Training. And so this is for, especially for nonprofits, if you think you're gonna get a chance to, whether it's, and it's all about, you know, doing it in the digital age. So, you know, yeah, if you're lucky enough to get a newspaper interview or a TV interview, great. But these days, podcasts, right? Or vlogs or blogs. I mean, it's the digital version of what we're doing today, exactly. So, and in the media training book, we also get into the aspect of crisis communication and dealing with that as well. Cause, you know, I mean, face it, there's so many nonprofits that have to face one crisis or another, whether it's, you know, the crisis of a moment, which is happening in time of a current event, or it could be an internal crisis, whatever it may be. And it's how you communicate that, that will ultimately determine how effective. And as I often point out with the word crisis, crisis does not mean a problem. If you look at the root word of crisis, what crisis means is turning point. So the crisis hits, how you communicate, how you deal with that crisis determines which direction your organization will be able to go. And I love, love, love that mindset. That is super powerful. And thank you for sharing that. Those two books are amazing. And I do appreciate that they are done in a workbook style. I can't encourage everyone enough to get these. Even if you have a marketing communications department or you don't, they're tools that come from the master. And real briefly on this one, it's, I always say, you know, if you're about to do an interview, you can read three or four pages in this, pick random and it'll be tips that you can use in the interview that's about to happen. I'm loving it. I'm loving it. Well, hey, I'm going to put up Rick's information again. Make sure you check out rickdebrue.com. He's one of the true champions in our community of news. And we are just delighted, Rick, that you're a friend of the show as we like to say and that you've come back on. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors from Bloomerang to your part-time controller, fundraising Academy, American nonprofit Academy, staffing boutique and nonprofit thought leader. Without these folks, we would not be here day in, day out with more than 500 episodes fully produced and available on all of our streaming channels. Hey, Rick, you've totally inspired me. I'm so appreciative. Because you're such a wallflower. It's so hard for you to do public speaking. Well, when I'm with you, my friend, yeah, hello. But no, it's really cool. It's really cool to speak with you, somebody who's been on both sides of the desk and it's really been an honor. So I appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us and I hope to see you again soon. As we end every episode of the nonprofit show, we want to remind everyone to stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow. And if you just happen to be in Vegas tomorrow at the AFP icon conference, stop by the Bloomerang booth where we will be broadcasting live.