Public Speaking 104 working on them, your venue is a them you need to know your venue. What I do is I get the address, I will go Google it, I will go to Street View and I will go and see what the venue actually looks like. If I have the time I will go to the venue. I will go meet the people and I will go and see what it looks like where the stage is going to be if I can't, then I will give myself time to get there so I can become comfortable with the venue. Know where the toilets are seriously. And then where to park is very important because sometimes I have parked miles away and by the time I get there I'm hot, and I'm flustered and I'm sweating.

And depending on your clothes, you must be careful, is you can we clothing materials that actually sweat and people can see sweating? You want to be careful with it? And then also, who is the host go to the host of the day somebody who arranged for you to be they might not be the person who's in control, or who's the authority. So you go to the host, you have to say, I am here, you introduce yourself. And then you ask them things like, have you got the program program or the city earlier? His program is important.

And then when am I going to be speaking? Another thing which we haven't discussed yet is time? How much time do I actually have to speak because sometimes it changes they'll give you 40 minutes. And as I mentioned before, I've had to do it in five minutes. You must know your time and we use slotting in the program because programs do change and especially on the day, they change, and sometimes the program goes up or down. Because the person before you or the person after you has messed it up, and you now have to try this, do a speech that you put together, that was 10 minutes, and now they're giving you a half an hour.

And that sometimes is terrifying. Shawn, what do I do if they increase my time? Brilliant, I'm so glad you asked. What you do is you do your speech for 10 minutes, and then you do questions and answers. And if you can't answer the question, you said, Is there anybody else in the audience that perhaps knows the answer to that question, and then that's how you can wing it on that one. And then Sandman, find your person that's in control of your sound, because if your sound is not working, or you don't know they need to show you how your mark works.

If it's a cooler, it's Mark how to switch it on. Ask if you can do a sound test must be very careful because your voice needs to be how you hear it. And we get terrified when we hear our own voices, but that's just what it is. But sometimes they drop the bass or there's too much bass in this crackling and it's a waste of time. So try and do a little bit of a sound check in at least make sure your mark is working. You're okay if you number one or two or three down the list because somebody else is using the market and they will mess it up and set it up with the first guy.

By the time it gets to you, you should be okay. And yes, a strange one. Get to know the waiters. If you have any of the stock, let's just call it stuff get to know this stuff. If it's a hotel or venue, who's the maitre D, who's the person and organizes the building, because if you run into a crisis, where you're actually going to need something, then you have really created a relationship with the person. So important thing is, know where your venue is, get there on time, have a good place for parking.

You don't want to stress about parking, if you have to pay extra to make sure your car is safe. Do that, because sometimes we don't stay for as short as what we think it extends. And then obviously you have to be safe when you're going to leave. But know your venue very important.