What is the golden rule of public speaking?
The rule most often taught as the golden rule of public speaking is: tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them, a structure built entirely around repetition. It is outdated for a short attention span audience, and it skips the single highest leverage part of a presentation, a practiced question and answer session.
Why repetition for its own sake backfires now
We live in a world of short attention spans and limited time. The old rule focuses on saying the same thing three times, and at this moment, all that repetition will do is anger people, because it wastes the time they gave you. An audience that already caught the point the first time does not want to hear it restated twice more so a speaker can feel thorough.
What the old rule never mentions
The rule does not include data driven storytelling, and it does not focus on what is probably the most important part of a presentation that actually works, the Q and A. Nobody practices the Q and A piece. Every ounce of prep time goes into the slides and the script, and the section of the presentation where real decisions get made is left to chance.
A former TV producer's answer
As a former TV producer, Jess has spent years building strategies specifically for the Q and A, and when those strategies get taught, the Q and A becomes the bigger part of the presentation and the most effective one. If there is a real golden rule, it is closer to this: prepare the room to talk back to you, and be ready when it does.
Jess Todtfeld produced network television at NBC, ABC, and Fox for 13 years, where the interview, not the script, was always the real test. That is the lens behind his Q and A frameworks.