#unfiltered #24 How long do you take to prepare for a talk? – A Study about Time Allocation

Last week, my mentor/friend asked me if I knew anyone who’s stellar at storytelling and would be willing to hold a 1-hour workshop about it with his mentorship group. I connected with my buddy who earned his chops podcasting and being a brilliant customer-oriented founder, specifically on the user journey.

And it got me thinking. Hmmmm, I wonder how long people take to prep for a workshop or talk designed to inform and educate. Which eventually led me to the question… How much time allocation might many event hosts underestimate when asking a speaker to speak at their event?

Well, outside of travel, set up, rehearsal time, and of course, the length of the talk/workshop itself.

So, over the last few days, I reached out to 68 friends, mentors, and colleagues who have been on the stage before, including:

• VCs – who invest out of vehicles that range from $5M to $1B (sample-specific)
• Angels – investing individuals, who have over $1M in net worth
• Founders – both venture-backed and bootstrapped
• Executives – Fortune 500 and startup
• Journalists
• Influencers – YouTubers and podcasters
• Consultants/Advisors
• Professors
• And, those who’ve been on public stages with 1000+ in live viewership.

… and asked them 2 questions:

1. How long, in hours, do you take to prepare for a 1-hour talk?
   • For the purpose of slightly limiting the scope to this question, let’s say it’s on a topic you’re extremely passionate and well-versed in, and the audience is as, if not more, passionate than you are.
2. And if I said this was for a high-stakes event, that may change your career trajectory, would your answer change? If so, how long would you spend prepping?

50 responded, with numerical answers, by the time I’m writing this post, with a few results I found to be quite surprising. *pushing my nerd glasses*

Lights, cameras, action

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher

The prefacing disclaimer

Before I begin, I want to disclaim that my little study is in no way indicative of the population. The 68 I reached out to was not simple randomly sampled, and neither were the 50 (+4) that responded. In a way, the 50 that responded self-selected themselves. That said, the 68 I reached out to all have a track record of giving multiple public talks or leading/hosting workshops.

Even if I randomly sampled the 68 I reached out to in my network, my own network is biased, weighted heavily on people I went to school with (public schools in the Bay Area, in the same/similar classes as I was in), people I work with (entrepreneurs/VCs), and high performers in their respective industries.

The purpose of this mini-study is just to shed some more light on:

• What many event hosts may underestimate when asking someone to do a talk;
• What exists below the tip of the iceberg – an angle of what hard work builds up to;
• And well, to satiate my own curiosity.

And though this data set may not prove useful in understanding the entire population’s distribution to these 2 questions, it’s better to assume that people will have to allot much more time to prepare for the talk/presentation than the length of the talk itself.

By the numbers

Incidentally, 50, as our sample size, made certain calculations much easier.

By gender,

• 28% are female.
• 72% are male.

By age,

• 14% are Gen Zs (1997-2012).
• 70% are millennials/Gen Ys (1977-1996).
• 12% are Gen Xers (1965-1976).
• 4%, just 2, are Baby Boomers (1946-1964).
• Unfortunately, no folks in the Silent or Greatest Generation.

By job,

• 38% are founders, 63% (12 of 19 founders) of which are venture-backed.
• 28% are investors – either VCs and/or angels. And, 28.6% (-ish), or 4 of the 14 investors, are part-time investors, with their full-time gig as either a founder or a senior executive. So, only 20% of the 50 people are full-time investors.
• 16% are consultants or advisors.
• 12% are influencers or journalists.
• The last 14% includes everyone else.

The Aggregate

For the first question: How long, in hours, do you take to prepare for a 1-hour talk?

In case, you’re curious:

For the second question: And if I said this was for a high-stakes event, that may change your career trajectory, would your answer change? If so, how long would you spend prepping?

Expectedly, no one thought they would spend less time preparing for the second scenario. All 50 said they would either spend the same or more time preparing. (Will take a deeper dive on the former cohort.) 38% of the respondents estimated they would spend at least twice as much prep time as in the first scenario. 22% (11 of the 50) said they’d spend three times as much time in the second scenario compared to the first scenario.

I wonder if the multiplicative effect is more strongly correlated with increase in negative anxiety/stress levels, or with positive ambition levels.

In case, you’re curious, part 2:

Oh, and if you’re wondering, I didn’t include myself in the data set, despite my speech bubble graphics above.

By gender:

While I tried to segment and regress by age, race, geography (Bay Area vs. not, city by city), and job, I didn’t find any discernible difference. Also, because my sample when segmented in certain ways became too small to perform any proper analysis on.

Two things I didn’t expect

Admittedly, I didn’t expect either when I began asking friends in the industry. But when they contextualized why, both make sense:

1. Treating all speaking opportunities equally as important;
2. And, capping one’s prep time.

Ceteris paribus

Ceteris paribus. Holding all else constant. A mathematical concept – but one a founder succinctly and eloquently responded with. Since he responded via a call, instead of a text or email back. I’m paraphrasing here:

At the end of the day, whether it’s a ‘regular’ or ‘high-stakes’ speaking opportunity to you, people are paying to hear you talk – with their wallet, and always with their time – a currency which you can never buy back . In your audience, there will be at least one individual whose life will change in hearing your thoughts. Yourself. And if you treat every opportunity as such, you will value every single one.

And he’s not alone, 26% of the respondents said they treat both scenarios equally as important. With answers ranging from zero to 40 hours of prep time, a mean a little over 8 hours, and a median average of 2.5 hours, of these 13 individuals:

• 11 of which have done something entrepreneurial in nature.
• 8 happen to currently be investors.
• 3 founders. 2 of which are venture backed.
• 1 consultant.
• 1 professor.

A former founder and professional engineer reached the same conclusion from a different perspective:

Yeah, it’s def counter-intuitive, but most workshops/presentations/info-session are governed by the Pareto principle, like many things in life. 80% of the value someone gets out of it is within 20% of the content. That’s why you often hear speakers who worry about getting their message across saying “if there’s one thing you should walk away from this talk remembering… it’s this”.

Most people won’t remember much of the content. They’re gonna remember more your tone, the general atmosphere, and the core of your message (i.e. the 20% value).

As such, increasing prep time 2x is trying to chase the tail-end messages.

Capping prep time

Speaking of counter-intuitive approaches, while I did expect a handful to spend close to no time to prep from speakers who have spoken about the same topic time and time again, (let’s call it muscle memory), I didn’t expect anyone to cap their prep time. But life’s full of surprises, ain’t it?

A certain venture-backed founder, someone I really respect, flipped my expectations inside-out. While he is the only one in 50 respondents who told me this, I find his insight, as to why, even more fascinating:

I’m on the extreme side of things. I learned long ago that I should only speak on things that I’m an expert on (meaning have a ton of real world experience and thought already put into it). So it’s something that is already ready for me to share with others and I’m already 90% prepped.

The last 10% is molding some key areas of the talk into the appropriate format / time constraint.

And I don’t over practice it because I want to just be myself – speaking straight from the sub conscious / flow state rather than a stiff rehearsed and regurgitated presentation.

Some disclaimers

Of course, just to cover an extra base, I asked a few of my friends who have never been on stage or given a talk. Though I chose not to include them in the data set, surprisingly, their estimations were pretty close to the median of those who have.

As you might have already noticed, through this mini-study, my goal was to assess what the cognitive load for a speaker would be, when he/she is asked: “Can you host a workshop for my organization?” or “Can you give a talk at my event?” And not, how long prep time actually takes, which I’m sure would differ from the answers that I was given. Another point of note is that I asked about prep time for a topic they’re well-versed and passionate about, the length of prep time goes up significantly if neither or only one of those conditions are satisfied. Furthermore, I purposefully asked the above questions in a nebulous nature to get general predictions on time they think they will/have spent. In effect, leaving a larger variance in answers.

For future reference, if I’m looking for more specific results, I’ll limit the scope of the question to the type of talk (i.e. business, technical, life story, etc.). And also, find enough of a sample size for each of the demographics (>20 people for each).

In closing

Much like the commitment associated with “Can you be my mentor?”, the underlying time allocation is often overlooked. So the next time you ask for a favor, think about how long it actually might take to fulfill that favor. At the same time, also, the ecosystem of tasks, responsibilities and social capital that may require.

Thank you to all my friends and colleagues who took precious time out of their day to help me satiate my curiosity, and all of whom I deeply love and respect. Whether I:

• Forced you out of your off-the-grid, scenic Tahoe vacation;
• Took valuable time from your 12-16 workday;
• Stole from your precious father-daughter bonding time;
• Buzzed your phone in the wee hours of the morning or the soft hours of these summer evenings;
• Or, any of my selfish derivatives in between,

… I have nothing short of my utmost gratitude for the time we spent together on this adventure of curiosity. While many of you seem superhuman to me, and I’m sure to many others, your candor shows that we’re all human. That where you are now (and will go in the future) is a result of passion, obsession, and most of all, grit.

So, I’m gonna end on a story one product executive, instrumental in creating one of the greatest household names we know today, told me when I asked him the 2 questions that started it all:

A woman’s pipe is clogged, so she calls a plumber.  The plumber shows up, takes his time, looks around, raps on the pipes with his knuckles and listens…

Finally, he pulls out a wrench and smacks the pipe.  Voila!  The water starts flowing again!

He hands the woman a bill – $100.  She says, “That’s ridiculous!  All you did was hit the pipe!  Anyone could have done that!”

He takes the bill back and says, “Let me itemize that for you.”

– Hitting the pipe, $1.

– Knowing exactly where to hit, after 30 years of experience plumbing: $99

😉

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

---

#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.

---

Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!