Earn Your DTM

A DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster) award is like money – if it were easy to get it wouldn’t be worth much. It is intended to be the highest recognition a Toastmaster can earn. With over 4 million members in its 80 year history, Toastmasters International has issued about 13,000 DTM awards. That said, there are things you can do to make the process a bit easier.

Requirements

Almost any Toastmasters manual describes the Toastmasters education program and lists the seven steps you need to complete to earn a DTM.

1. Competent Communicator
2. Advanced Communicator Bronze
3. Advanced Communicator Silver
4. Advanced Communicator Gold
5. Competent Leader
6. Advanced Leader Bronze
7. Advanced Leader Silver

While it is true that there are only seven steps to completing this goal, it only takes four to become President of the United States. Don’t get overwhelmed by the details. Complete the tasks one by one and you will earn your DTM. Here are some hints to make life a bit easier.

Build Your Leadership Team

About half the tasks focus on leadership. Since a leader without followers is someone out for a walk, it’s useful to build a leadership team around you. In my case, some members of a local advanced Club and I formed a study group and served as each other’s advisory committee. By coincidence, each of our last tasks was a High Performance Leadership project. When the projects finished at about the same time, we held a DTM-a-thon – four DTMs earned in a single club meeting.

Other ways to form a support group are a Division Governor and Area Governors or an Area Governor with club officers. All you really need is one Toastmaster for your advisory group; the rest can come from anywhere. Nobody earns a DTM alone, so the sooner you start to form a support team the sooner they can support you.

Start Your High Performance Leadership Project

For reasons I don’t entirely understand, this is the last thing many people finish. It was for me. You can start a project immediately and it is probably in your best interest to do so. Pick a project that is significant enough for you to need help and get growth out of the experience. Toastmasters events make good projects because they come with specific delivery dates, but you can apply the project to any aspect of your life. You are probably working on a long term project, but long term means many tasks, not someday maybe.

Develop a Plan

From the Distinguished Club Plan on up, Toastmasters recognizes that a goal without a plan is a wish. You can and should set tasks and due dates and identify resources for the many things on your do list. Don’t let the list overwhelm you. And yes, the plan should be in writing.

Eat the Ugly Frog First

In his book “Eat that Frog”, Brian Tracy says if you must eat two frogs before lunch eat the ugly frog first. He intends this advice to apply to managing your time, not your diet. The idea is to tackle the biggest task (ugliest frog) first, so the rest will be that much easier to handle.

For most people, the ugly frogs are all associated with the Advanced Leader Silver. A year as District Officer takes a year (once you get started). A High Performance Leadership Project can take months. Building a club as a sponsor coach is uncertain. It may take months, and it may take more than one try. When you develop your plan, include tasks against the long term items so you can see progress on them.

Know Your District Officers

Congratulations, you are about to make some new friends (if you haven’t already). One of your requirements is to serve a year as district officer. For most people, this means a year as Area Governor or some other office appointed by the District Governor. Similarly, club sponsors and coaches are appointed by him. The good news is that he needs people to do these jobs so there is mutual benefit in establishing a relationship with the District Governor. Since they are the likely District Governors for the next couple years, get to know your Lieutenant Governor of Education ad Training and Lieutenant Governor of Marketing too.
Be Prepared
Fortune favors the prepared, and you can shave the calendar if you are ready when opportunity knocks on your clubhouse door. Here are a few tips to help with the dozens of speeches you need to give.

Between the three Advanced Communicator recognitions, you will need to complete thirty manual speeches – five each from six advanced manuals. Toastmasters International doesn’t care which six, but you should. Every manual comes with the challenging project intended to help you grow. By selecting (and buying) all six manuals you’ll need up front, you can plan better and you will have more choices available to you.

Almost any club will sooner or later have a speech cancellation. By having speeches ready and manuals in hand, you can avoid the delay built into a busy club’s calendar. If your club isn’t busy, you may have a topic for a speech available. The point is to be ready when the club calendar has a vacancy.

The good news in this department is you don’t really need a new speech. Evaluators give us advice for how to improve a speech if we decide to give it again, and sometimes that’s exactly what you should do. As long as the speech allows you to practice the goals of more than one project, you should feel good about giving it a second, third, or fourteenth time.

Have Fun

If you aren’t getting fun out of the process of earning your DTM, either find a way to have fun or reconsider why you set the goal in the first place. Distinguished Toastmaster Rhonda Frum says “the best part of the experience is the experience.”

Sometimes this is a matter of attitude. If you pursue the tasks with enthusiasm and energy, you’ll have more fun while you’re doing the work. Be the Toastmaster you intend to be, and you’ll become the Toastmaster you want to be. Make the process work for you.