An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Come in prepared. Know what you’re going to say and how it’s going to start and end. There is nothing worse than listening to someone figure out their presentation on the fly and just rambling without a cohesive point.

At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Brian Franklin.

Most of Brian Franklin’s 25 years of work in writing and advertising has involved working as an award-winning political consultant (including Best Use of Humor in a political ad). In his political career has guided communications and advertising for over 150 campaigns, from congressional campaigns to state-wide races and ballot amendments, and has managed advocacy programs for numerous national organizations.

In 2021, Brian and his wife Nicole started Vows & Speeches, a company created to solve the problems of anxiety that couples have about writing their own vows, and as a cure for boring, rambling, long, and/or embarrassing speeches that happen seemingly in every wedding. Likewise, many officiants without experience (and even some that have experience) have trouble writing a compelling, enjoyable ceremony. Vows & Speeches works with the couple and their officiant choice to write a moving, enjoyable ceremony that tells the story of the relationship.

Vows & Speeches aims to lead a new niche in the wedding industry where the aspects of the wedding that involve writing have professional assistance.

Brian Franklin

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

My family bounced around a lot as my dad was in sales. I was born in New York City and lived in Jersey until I was 6, then in Sherman Oaks, CA for a year and a half, moved back to Jersey for a few years, then California from 10–17… then Miami and Fort Lauderdale. I met my now-wife and partner, Nicole, who lived in Los Angeles. We both had children from our previous marriages, and so from 2010 to 2019, I flew from Florida to or from Los Angeles every week. Richard Branson even wrote a blog post about our marriage, which was helped along by Virgin America happening to be the first airline with reliable, fleetwide Wi-Fi in 2010. If it wasn’t for them and his vision, I probably couldn’t have kept our company going and kept the relationship.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

Professionally, I started out as an advertising copywriter and wound up starting a political advertising and communications firm in 2007. It went very well, and we won some big races, but I’ve been casually trying to get out of politics for several years. Some of my work has involved speechwriting, and by this point I’d helped some friends and family members with their speeches and officiated a few weddings. I started to casually look at writing wedding speeches and last year, I talked to some wedding pros on the app Clubhouse about it. They suggested adding custom vows and ceremony scripts.

A light went on in my head, and a couple of hours later, I had a logo designed, a website posted and written, and the next day we had our first client. Talking to wedding planners — we realized quickly there was a tremendous interest in our services. We’ve been steadily building since, and it’s been fantastic fun. I was a songwriter and performer throughout my twenties, so it’s nice to go back to writing about love.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Whether we’re writing the ceremony or the wedding speech, you get to know a lot about the couples. One of my favorite stories involves a groom who is particularly quiet, rarely talks to people… but when he learned his fiancé loved Ariana Grande, he learned every song so that when they went to the concert, he could make it that much more fun by being able to sing along with her and a crowd of tweens.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

No good mistake stories here yet, thankfully. It’s a new business, but so far everything has gone pretty smoothly.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I was a natural writer, but it wasn’t until my second job in advertising that I was hired and mentored by an extremely talented writer and creative director, Christian Boswell. Christian took the time to edit my work like a professor might… with the goal of teaching rather than quickly getting to good copy. He would ask questions like, “Why did you use that word or phrase?” But most of all he would cut stuff out and demonstrate how to get more complex ideas out with fewer words or sentences. Everything became purer… more distilled. He made sure you knew how to interview the client in a way that got you the info you really needed. They’re skills that have proven critical in everything I’ve done professionally, but particularly invaluable with Vows & Speeches.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

Starting a new career, particularly later in life, can be scary — but so is the prospect of being unhappy in the career you have. There was no plan to be in the wedding industry two years ago. Something clicked in my head, and I just jumped towards it. My wife, Nicole, who is also my partner in the business, went with me to an industry conference in November and as we were walking out, she said “You know, you’ve had some cockamamie ideas in the past. This is not one of them.” She was all in, and we’ve been putting our hearts into it ever since. It’s very exciting. Home runs require big swings. There’s a lot of work to be done, but sometimes you just have to trust your instincts.

What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?

It’s not the talks — it’s the job. Every day, we get to write love stories and help parts of the wedding that have largely been left without professional guidance. So much attention is traditionally paid to the optics of the wedding… we want to make the words beautiful, too.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

We’re expanding and going to be hiring additional writers and staff over the next months. Our hope is that by 2023, many more couples and wedding party speakers know there is help there for them, and they don’t have to be anxious about what they’re going to write or say. We’re trying to create a niche in the industry and be a leader in how that is marketed to couples and the rest of the industry.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Many years ago, I adapted a quote from a Tom Waits song, which was originally “Did you bury the carnival” into a motto: “Don’t bury the carnival.” To me, beyond simply having fun, it’s about not allowing life to get in the way of the things that are colorful and enjoyable. I recently got a tattoo to that effect… and thinking about this new business, it’s even more meaningful. We’ve got to make sure the good parts shine in the scripts!

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.

  1. Come in prepared. Know what you’re going to say and how it’s going to start and end. There is nothing worse than listening to someone figure out their presentation on the fly and just rambling without a cohesive point.
  2. Be dynamic in the organization of your content. Treat the content like a musical artist might treat a set list. You want there to be the equivalent of fast songs and slow songs… Not being too dense with data for too long without getting to some highlights. Getting the crowd ramped up from the beginning, and then assume you have to get their attention again. In weddings, this means interspersing humor with the romantic or serious parts. (Or vice versa.)
  3. Be dynamic in the organization of your presentation. No one wants to hear a monotone speaker… nor is it effective to be loud all the time or soft the whole time. Throughout the course of your speech, change the cadence and the volume. Have soft parts and loud parts. Have fast ones and slow ones. This keeps the audience’s attention and helps you emphasize points that really matter while creating excitement and build up beforehand.
  4. Remember why the audience is there. Too many speakers — particularly in weddings — forget the mission is to please the audience, not themselves. In weddings, it seems wedding party speakers often think this is their time to practice their stand-up routine, or to get a litany of feelings (good or bad) off their chest, when in fact the real goal should be to make the couple + and the audience smile and be happy. In other types of speaking engagements, it might be to deliver a message or to simply be entertaining while they eat. But to be a truly effective speaker — you have to remember why the audience is listening to you in the first place. Are you an incidental speaker at something else they signed up for? Or did they come specifically to hear you? The answers should change how and what you present.
  5. Practice out loud, time it, and don’t be a minute longer than you need to be. Reading something silently is not practicing. Practicing is reading out loud, getting the words out, and getting some muscle memory going. It’s so common to be able to read something in your head, and then you go to speak it and it feels like you’re tripping over an obstacle course of words. A good presenter will either practice until they can get through those obstacles or rewrite the sentence or paragraph so it’s easier. Importantly, you need to time it. Very experienced speakers know what a certain number of words or pages roughly equals in time, but most people should verify it with a stopwatch. If you’re going over, cut the copy back. And if they’ve given you 5 minutes, and you can say what you need to say in 4, then do it in 4. Don’t speak for the sake of speaking, unless you’re being paid to do a minimum of a certain number of minutes.

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

We work with couples and wedding party speakers that are often afraid of speaking in public, and have no experience talking in front of 50, 100, 150 or more of their closest friends and family. Especially about something so personal and close to their heart.

Getting professional help with both the script and presentation dramatically reduces their anxiety. Knowing that someone is helping you craft good content, agreeing on the quality of it, and working with you to present it better makes everything easier. Beyond that the biggest key is practicing. People are often afraid of being embarrassed… messing up. But they won’t be embarrassed if the content is good and they’ve put the work in to get competent at delivering it. That’s a lot of why we are building this business — it’s not just making the wedding better; it’s taking the anxiety and pressure out of these moments.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I’m not a person of huge influence, but I think we need a movement to find commonalities again to get back to the point where we knew we disagreed with people on politics or religion or taxes, but we could still call them friends or close family members and enjoy their company. We need to channel our passions back into the things we appreciate about each other rather than the things that can — and seemingly are — tearing friendships and families apart.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

Bruce Springsteen’s been a hero of mine for most of my life and provided an insane amount of joy. I learned guitar and sang specifically imagining joining him on stage someday. That seems a bit unlikely at this point, but lunch, while still unlikely, seems like a lower lift for him.

A close second after that would be Dwayne Wade — who from what I’ve seen and heard exemplifies the kind of work ethic and character anyone could hope for from a public figure. (Go Heat.)

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

Website: VowsAndSpeeches.com
Instagram: @vowsandspeeches (http://instagram.com/vowsandspeeches/)
Facebook @vowsandspeeches (https://www.facebook.com/vowsandspeeches)

Twitter: @Brian_Franklin

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!


Brian Franklin Of Vows & Speeches On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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