An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Keeping it short is vital. Losing the attention of your audience will make anything you say less impactful. It is also important to make sure that the people can easily comprehend the structure of your speech. In that sense, when you speak on your topic of expertise, a cohesive picture is vital, it ensures that your audience not only is able to follow you, but also understand and reflect on the suggested ideas.

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 Matias Rodsevich.

Matias has had PR & Marketing experience in B2B, B2C, technology and product communications across corporate, startup and agency environments for over a decade now. His specialty focuses on B2B & B2C Tech PR & Marketing. After graduating PR from the Argentine University of Enterprise, he was employed by various highly-prominent Tech clients such as IBM and Google Argentina, as well as over 50 European and American startups and scaleups. Examples include 3D Hubs, Recruitee, Unifonic, and more.

He’s the Founder & CEO of PRLab, one of the top 5 PR Agencies of The Netherlands, specialising in a data-driven and growth-driven approach that brings uniqueness into PR. He’s also the author of The PR Paradox, the first book about mastering the art of PR as a startup. Lastly, Matias founded the PRLab Community, the first community of its kind with over +1300 PR and Marketing professionals as members that get together to discuss innovation in PR on a monthly basis and follow emerging and ever changing trends in the PR and Marketing industry.

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?

I grew up in Argentina, a city called La Plata, and my parents loved to travel. So for me, it was normal to often visit new places, and experience new environments. From an early age I remember we travelled all the way to Madrid, which I adored. We also went to Buenos Aires all the time, and these experiences made me fall in love with travelling.

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

I have always been able to connect with people. Maybe from the different cultures I experienced at an early age, or from my natural passion for new experiences and journeys, but I am a people person. When I found out PR is all about people, I had set my path to learn everything there is to know about PR and how it helps people. So I went to Buenos Aires to do my Bachelor’s in Public Relations, and there I found my natural surroundings.

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

After I had begun, it was a great and dynamic experience — I moved to a new continent (twice) and in The Netherlands I kickstarted a community and my own agency. But the most interesting thing was writing a book. I took all of my experience and wrote it down, and the sheer process led to me to love what I do even more.

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?

There was this one client, who was unhappy with the story we released for his company. The story had been published with the collaboration of a third party journalist, and I went and contacted the journalist to see if we can remove or change the story. When I did, they simply laughed in my face.

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?

One of my closest friends, Marco Genaro Palma, whom I have known since I was 18 years old is a huge reason why the agency is prospering. We would occasionally see each other when we have free time and are in the same country or continent (he tends to travel even more than I do). He specializes in SEO and web performance and optimization, and was immediately on board to help me expand my agency’s outreach. We were having coffee in La Plata when I first mentioned the idea to him, and he was all in.

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?

Ultimately, don’t feel intimidated. Although it is challenging, PR is all about people, and with time and experience you will ease in and realize it’s actually a close community. My advice would be to make sure you connect with people and think of how you can help others. In no time you will find yourself already on a steady career path.

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?

There’s always something to learn from others. Being open-minded is the number one characteristic that will get you going. This is what drives me. I always have something new to learn, and if I can, I also want to be the source for someone else to learn. I get up every morning with excitement about the things I’ll learn and it motivates me to give my talks for others to learn.

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?

The tech world is rapidly growing and we try to be there for this growth. We help tech companies expand into new markets and get visibility in front of investors, so they can keep their companies alive and grow them further. Currently, we focus on the Dutch, German, and Swedish markets, with our clients receiving constant exposure, and their brands creating impact, both in their image and their work.

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

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.” — Albert Einstein

This quote by Einstein has slightly changed the way I look at what I do. Instead of rushing to succeed, I began thinking about how I can actually contribute to the world. This helped me focus my activities on helping the community I’m so passionate about and involved in. It also helped me realize my goals, and with that, I managed to gather the knowledge and experience to be a man of value as much as I can, and put this value to play impactful roles.

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. Confidence brings credibility and authenticity. If you are confident on stage, your words will be more impactful. When you go in front of a large audience, you need the confidence in your words to reassure them of the knowledge and expertise you have on the subject. Then, it is more likely to be successful and impactful on the crowd.
2. Being yourself relates to your ability to keep it natural. Establishing a natural connection with the audience is a positive trait that will aid your performance, while fake tones that might be “too perfect” can be detected to dissociate the crowd from you. That’s why you should avoid putting up a stage appearance or character — it’s easy for others to see through it and detect that something is “off”.
3. Relating to the audience also establishes a connection that helps convey what you are saying. Rather than keeping it cold and distant while speaking, you should be talking with the people instead of to them. This way, the crowd gets more engaged, and it feels more like a two-way conversation than just a mere output of information for them to soak.
4. Keeping it short is vital. Losing the attention of your audience will make anything you say less impactful. It is also important to make sure that the people can easily comprehend the structure of your speech. In that sense, when you speak on your topic of expertise, a cohesive picture is vital, it ensures that your audience not only is able to follow you, but also understand and reflect on the suggested ideas.
5. Lastly, practicing your speech is a guarantee for having the natural flow needed. It builds your ability to bring the other 4 points into your speech. If you only memorize the words it will feel distant from the audience. Practicing is a key component to having a good speech and a good performance. You will learn along the way that intonation, body language, pauses are all important and even necessary. And with practice you will know how these details affect how the crowd takes in your speech and the impact it will have on the overall success of your performance.

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

Sometimes I still have that fear. But the more you expose yourself to speaking on stage, the more comfortable you will become in that surrounding. I worked on my stage fright by reassuring myself that I know what I’m talking about, and I’ve found the way to say it. Which again comes with experience, but more importantly with your own personal way of communicating. Speak in your own unique way, as if explaining to a friend, or even to yourself in the mirror. This will trick you into feeling more confident and drive the fear away.

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 would definitely focus on privacy and data protection. In a fast-paced world that is more and more digitalised, it’s important to know that your personal boundaries are protected. You wouldn’t want your information in the wrong hands. So I support the movement for more privacy and cybersecurity.

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!

This is more of a dream than reality, but I’d really love to have lunch with Steve Carell. I loved him in The Office, and his confidence, impersonations, and energy are all great values that I would love to connect with over lunch. Certainly a great comedian, with a lot of natural intuition.

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

Yes! Feel free to check out my LinkedIn profile, and follow or connect for more exciting things coming up!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mat%C3%ADas-rodsevich-12964043/

https://prlab.co/author/matias-rodsevich/

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

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Matias Rodsevich Of PRLab 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.