Public speaking can feel terrifying or electric depending on who you are, and that’s exactly what makes this episode so fun. Jay Schwedelson and Daniel Murray swap raw, honest tips on what actually works when you’re about to face an audience—whether it’s a Zoom call, a boardroom, or a 12,000-person conference stage. From practicing in chaos to ditching those dreaded agenda slides, they get real about how to keep both yourself and your audience engaged.

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Best Moments:

(01:00) Jay opens up about his new book, imposter syndrome, and why all proceeds go to cancer research

(02:16) Daniel shares why he always rehearses the morning of a talk to calm nerves

(03:00) Jay explains why you should practice speeches with background noise to prepare for real-life distractions

(04:15) Daniel talks about using word cues instead of memorizing to stay flexible on stage

(05:19) Jay calls out the boring “seven things I’ll cover” slide that loses audiences instantly

(06:18) Daniel stresses trimming tips down to avoid rushing and keep talks tight

(07:15) Jay warns against using unexplained acronyms that can alienate people in the room

(09:05) Daniel admits to sweating it out pre-stage while Jay thrives on energy and conversation to stay loose

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Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson

Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson

Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/

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Daniel Murray: Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Break, that extra 10 minutes. You either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom or both, but I don't recommend both,

Jay Schwedelson: but that's your choice. This collab is gonna be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schon from the Do This Not That podcast in subject line.com.

Jay Schwedelson: Each episode in this series, we are gonna go over quick tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out.

Daniel Murray: We are back with another episode of the Marketing Millennials podcast, and today I'm here with bestselling author Jay Schon. Um, he just recently wrote a book. He also just recently got, um, shouted out by the CEO of HubSpot. For being a great inbound speaker. 'cause we could speak about speaking today, but how does it feel to have a bestselling book?

Daniel Murray: I, I, it's just achievement.

Jay Schwedelson: I will tell you the book is called Stupider. People have done it. It's up for presale. You can all, all proceeds, all net proceeds are gonna charity the V Foundation for cancer research. That's really the only reason I'm doing it. I don't think I've ever had more, uh, imposter syndrome.

Jay Schwedelson: I felt more uncomfortable about doing something in my life than doing this book because I'm borderline illiterate and, um, I don't even know. So we'll see how it goes. But what about you? Would you ever write a book? I've

Daniel Murray: thought about it, but I am, again, a literate like you. So, um, it's probably gonna, it will take me years to write a book.

Daniel Murray: The thing about Jay, you should know is that if he has an idea, he just like. Does it and like, right, if it, if would ha if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. So like, he's like, I'm gonna write a book. Okay, let me just write a book and just let me do a hundred other things as well as write a book.

Daniel Murray: So,

Jay Schwedelson: yeah, it's a horrendous idea. I'm not, I'm not gonna lie, this was, um, uh, this was more than I anticipated, but whatever. It's an experience. Screw it. Um, so let's talk about public. Speaking. So both of us have sessions coming up at the inbound conference, which is giant 12,000 person event that HubSpot puts on.

Jay Schwedelson: We both have sessions, so we're gonna rattle off some public speaking. Must dos never dos how we approach a session. So, Daniel, um, you got your session coming up. What do you do? How do you approach a session? How do you, how do you make it not suck?

Daniel Murray: I always practice my speech the day of, so I know I've already completed that, the speech on the day, so I'm not nervous to do it the first time that day.

Daniel Murray: So I'll, I'll run through it the morning of, so it's. Kind of a mental walkthrough so I know, hey, my speech has already been completed this day instead of doing the night before. I always run through it a good dry run before I go on stage. Um, so that's something I think more and more people should do is one, once you have that mental block that you completed that day, I feel it's much easier to get on stage.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah. I'll tell you a couple things that I do and that I don't do. First off, if I'm gonna practice my session, I always practice it with a lot of noise going on. I'll, I'll prac people make the mistake. They'll practice it in a quiet room, like I need to be quiet and practice my speech. It's ridiculous because when you do actually speak somewhere, and again, this is not just for a big speech.

Jay Schwedelson: It could be on a Zoom with five people. It could be in a conference room with 10 people. Everybody publicly speaks. When you practice what you're gonna say, you practice it with the TV on, you practice it with people in the room or whatever. Because when you ultimately do speak on that zoom or the conference room or a big speech somewhere, it's not gonna be a perfect setup.

Jay Schwedelson: People are gonna be on their phones, they're gonna be walking around, there's gonna be noise. So you wanna have an environment that's a little bit more similar, um, to reality. What else do you think about?

Daniel Murray: I like that advice of the noise. I never thought, but we used to actually in football the week of a loud game, they used to like put on the speakers, um, like loud music the whole time.

Daniel Murray: Yeah. And we use, and if it was a rainy day, we, a rainy game. They used to soak the footballs and water. So you, so you need to be as close to the conditions on the field, like they say in, in sports as possible. Another thing I like to do is. I don't like to memorize, um, speeches. I like to have word cues in that, is that I know that are built into the deck or on the notes just to say like, Hey, I need to hit these, these points.

Daniel Murray: Because memorizing I feel if you in a flow and then you forget something, there's nothing. To go off of. But at least if you have word cues, you can always go to that next word in your head and come up with something. 'cause if you practice enough, this, something will come out. I, I don't believe you probably gonna say a different speech 20 different times.

Daniel Murray: But if you at least practice and have some word cues, it helps you have a flow. Help you not get stuck. If you get stuck in the middle of a speech.

Jay Schwedelson: Oh my God, I, I, I couldn't agree with that more. I think memorize the problem with memorizing a speech is two parts. You as the speaker, and again, it could be for a small group, it doesn't matter.

Jay Schwedelson: You as the speaker, screw yourself up because if you miss a word or sentence, you're like, oh, oh, wait a minute, where am I? And that, that's a horrendous situation. There's nothing more boring than watching somebody or listening to somebody that has memorized something. Say it. They're not invested in it.

Jay Schwedelson: They're just trying to get through it. Speaking of boring, I'll tell you the one thing that I will never do that most people do when they're doing a presentation at their company or whatever, their first slide or two has a list. These are the seven things I'm going to take you through. Okay? They put that slide up and instantly when you're there on that zoom in the conference room or whatever, you as an attendee.

Jay Schwedelson: As a listener, like, oh God. This is gonna be terrible. Can we just get to number seven? We have to get through all of these horrendous You are telling people it's going to be boring, it's going to suck. I know people tell you to tell them what you're gonna say and then you say it again. And whatever that stupid saying is, don't do that.

Jay Schwedelson: Stop being boring outta the gate. Don't show 'em the list of the crap that you're gonna say. 'cause that is when you lose everybody.

Daniel Murray: I, I also think for me it's speeches go faster than you think. So what I like to do is concise. The amount of tips I'm gonna give just because you, you only have enough time and you think it's gonna go as shorter.

Daniel Murray: So if you have like 15 tips, try to get it down to 10 to eight tips and just go for the, the best eight tips, because you're gonna get on stage and the worst thing to do on stage is having to rush to the end. The deck. So it's better to finish early, I believe in a speech than late in a speech. So always try to concise your talk, uh, a little bit into more smaller chunks, because even if you had smaller chunks, I, I guarantee you'll probably get close to that time on stage.

Jay Schwedelson: Do, dude, I needed that advice a few weeks ago before I submitted my deck for inbound, because I'm doing an email tip session. It's a 45 minute session. I have 101 slides. I mean, it is so, it is gonna be like, I'm gonna be on like 12 Celsius or CELs ci, or whatever the hell you say. It is not going to be a good situation at all.

Jay Schwedelson: The other thing I'll tell you, one last tip from me is cater to the lowest common denominator in your audience. I am never shocked. 'cause now it's happened to me so many times I'll give us, I'll talk or I'll be on a Zoom or in a conference room, whatever, and I'll have slides up and I'll say something like, um, and this is, you know, for DTC marketers or this is for a BM, right?

Jay Schwedelson: And I won't actually say what the acronym is. And then invariably people will come and be afterwards. What's DTC? I totally missed that. Whatever. And you make people feel stupid even though they're not stupid. Not everybody knows, I don't know all the acronyms. I have no idea what they mean. Never make somebody feel stupid in the audience.

Jay Schwedelson: You want everyone to feel as comfortable as they can. So if you say, oh, DTC, oh, that's direct to consumer marketing a BM, that's account-based marketing. Say what it is that you're saying. Cater to the person who might not know. 'cause if not, there's nothing that's a bigger turnoff.

Daniel Murray: Yeah, that's actually something hard for a lot of people I think.

Daniel Murray: You try to go on stage and try to act like an expert in something, but the way to become an expert is like teach it simply and then you learn this in social and all marketing. Um, try to get to simplify the talk to as, as much as possible. I think that's a big mistake I always think about is even in like newsletters and stuff like that.

Daniel Murray: I always say like, even if it says like. Call to action like CTA, I always have to say call to action CTA so people know that at least I the understanding this 'cause they'll get lost in. Um, so that's a really good point is spell things out because people don't know.

Jay Schwedelson: So, all right, now it's just on a human level.

Jay Schwedelson: Now you're getting ready to do a session. Do you like talk to people like, like the 10 minutes before you give a talk, right? It's always so awkward, like everyone's sitting there in the audience. You're kind of there. What's your move? Do you just stand there on stage like a big goober, or do you go into the audience and talk to people and try to connect with people?

Jay Schwedelson: Like what do you do?

Daniel Murray: I tried to not have a panic attack, so, uh, I'm like, I'm like trying to breathe like center myself. Like I swear the times I've been on stage, I'm like this close to being like I'm out before I get on stage. So, um, like Jay Jay's a completely different, I see Jay before he goes on stage.

Daniel Murray: He's like. He's like double fisting. Two Celsius is like hyped up. Talking to 18 people gets on stage right? And literally me, I'm like sweating, um, profusely before I'm getting on stage. So it's two different types of people out there.

Jay Schwedelson: That's amazing. You know what I always try to do, and I think this is good to do again, in a Zoom, a conference room, a big speech doesn't, whatever.

Jay Schwedelson: I try to connect with at least one human being, like have a normal conversation. Oh, where are you from? Oh, I'm from Nashville. Oh my God, I was at this restaurant, blah, blah, blah. Because the second that you can humanize whoever it is that you're about to speak to you, it puts you at ease. You're like, oh, they're people.

Jay Schwedelson: They want me to do a good job. I wanna do a good job. This is not that complicated. And that's, and by the way, everybody gets nervous if you think, oh, I, I'm not a good public speaker. I get nervous. Don't label yourself that way. Everybody is nervous if they say they're not, they're full of it. So don't ever label yourself that.

Jay Schwedelson: You can't publicly speak. That stinks, but you know, it doesn't stink. This podcast doesn't stink, even though it's called bathroom break. And bathrooms stink. I don't know what I'm talking about. This has been an incredible episode. As usual. Listen, everybody go subscribe to Daniel's, uh, uh, uh, uh, show. And by the way, if you mention this show and you tag us on Instagram at the marketing Millennials and at Jay Schon, we will put you on our story, uh, which is very exciting.

Jay Schwedelson: Uh, so we appreciate you and thanks for being here.

Daniel Murray: Thank you,

Jay Schwedelson: Daniel. Come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there, this is Jay. Check out my podcast. Do this, not that for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing, and I hope you give it a try. Oh, here's

Daniel Murray: Daniel. He's finally out.

Daniel Murray: Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Marking Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the bathroom break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out, and it could be anything from email subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it.

Daniel Murray: Just give us a, a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. He's out later.