Public Speaking Articles & News
Make Your Talks Pay: Have People Stand In Line Eager Give You Their Business Card
If you've ever been on stage, doing a talk or presentation then you'll know how often this happens...
A Powerful Vocabulary Will Transform Your Life
Studies show that your word-power determines your earning power, that your skill in self-expression determines your status in life.
Opening Your Speech
Imagine yourself at mission control; 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - Speak! When the space shuttle blasts off - those first few seconds of lift are critical. It comprises a small portion of the total journey, yet if someone errors - they crash and burn. The beginning of your speech is much the same. If you error in the opening your speech will crash and burn. The mission of your opening is to 1. Grab their interest; 2. Establish rapport; 3. Introduce your topic. Here ...
Speak to Be Heard and Understood
Use your voice to your advantage. One of your main tools as a trainer is your voice, and you should be aware of several of its characteristics.
Boost Your Confidence, Credibility, and Career
There's one skill you can develop that will boost your confidence, credibility and career. It's public speaking. If the very thought makes you queasy, you're not alone. For some people, only death is more frightening. For others, death is preferable. Are you the latter? Avoiding the spotlight? Suffering not just butterflies but sheer panic? Dry mouth? Shaking hands? Flushed or pale face? If this sounds like you, then consider overcoming—or at least controlling—your fear. You can ...
Don't Judge an Audience by its Stare
Don’t Prejudge A Situation: In the areas of emotions and feelings, it is important to avoid the natural human tendency to take situations at their face value no matter how practiced one is in making presentations.
Talk May Be Cheap but Your Speech Should Be Priceless!
Take a moment and imagine if you will any one of the following scenarios: --You’ve been contacted to schedule an interview for a fantastic job opportunity. --You’ve been requested by your employer to make a key presentation at a Board of Director’s meeting. --You have a lunch appointment with a prospective client from a major account. --You’ve been asked to fill in for a colleague in teaching a training session. --You’ve been designated to represent your ...
How to Answer Questions Your Audience Will Ask
In elementary school, most of us asked questions which were for purely informational purposes. A raise of the hand usually got the attention of the teacher and the question was treated matter-of-factly. In training however, questions from the audience are rarely asked and when they are, they don’t get the attention they deserve. However, these questions, along with other indicators, can give a trainer an abundance of information to analyze their audience. It is crucial that trainers take ...
Analyzing Your Audience and Assessing Comprehension Through Feedback
Aside from fielding and asking questions, there are other ways of analyzing audience attention and feedback. Unfortunately most trainers are unaware of these methods or feel audience analysis is not really all that effective or important. Nothing could be further from the truth. Analysis is the main tool for what is known as the “functional approach” this dictates that you always seek to measure your progress toward an objective as well as the accomplishment itself. Without the ability to ...
Let Your Products Sell Your Name: For Public Speakers
Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to be one long, giant commercial for yourself all the time? If maybe your products and your name did the promoting for you? When someone hires you to speak at a high profile event, they are taking a large gamble on your ability to engage an audience’s interest, and the extent of your knowledge. That said, it is important to have some credibility to your name, or you’ll be speaking at every pitiful engagement that comes along.
Is Information Delivery Instruction?
Do you work for one of those organisations whose "training" invariably consists of someone standing up in front of a group and saying something? If you answered 'yes', you're not alone. It's a common practice which leads to a widely held perception among many that it's training. It's a perception that has annoyed me over many years. I'm not against information sessions ... they have their place. What I am against is calling them 'training sessions'.
Performance Feedback: Why We're Scared and How Not to Be
Effective communication is not a one-way street. It involves an interaction between the sender and the receiver. The responsibility for this interaction is assumed by both parties. The speaker can solicit feedback and adjust the message accordingly. The listener can summarize what was said for the speaker and continually practice the empathetic process.
Tips For Keeping Your Cool Before Your Presentation
Stretch to relax. Rise on your toes and reach for the ceiling, with your head back. Tighten your muscles from legs up through abdomen, and then release. Relax the neck and shoulder muscles, letting your head loll on your neck in different directions.
Trust in Training: Society's Effect on an Audience
It is important to be continually aware that a person usually will not be consciously aware of how and why they are reacting, yet even if they knew, they wouldn’t tell you. Society conditions people to hide their true inner drives and motives especially from those close to them (or even to themselves). Only when they are assured — both intellectually and emotionally — that it is safe to do so, will they reveal what they really need, want, feel, or think. A trainer’s job is to make a person ...
Building Respect with Your Audience: Positive Thinking and Outhouse Eyes
Do you believe in natural laws? Laws like: • What goes up, must come down • What you sow, you reap • When you look down outhouse holes, you get green eyes (I know this one works – I’ve got green eyes) Thoughts create reality is another natural law. Positive thoughts create positive results, and negative thoughts create negative results. Does this happen for you? When you plan your presentation, you may have doubt and worry about your delivery and ...
Let Your Appearance Speak for You, Not Against You!
Every 7 seconds another baby boomer turns 50. What does an aging workforce mean? It means that the average age of your seminar attendee if getting older. Health is becoming the most precious asset and they are having less and less of it. It means that if you are talking about reaching your dreams, achieving successful career, or making a lot of money and you are not exhibiting glowing health, you are not believable. It also means that the underlying interest of your audience, no matter what ...
Fee Credibility is a Must
Think of it like this: your fee credibility is as important as putting on your clothes before going to a speaking engagement. Having questionable integrity when it comes to your fee, will leave you open for attack from many different angles (as would giving a speech nude). Without question, all hiring events should receive identical fee bills, as long as they are getting identical presentations. Overcharging or undercharging an event will do nothing but get you in trouble with the speaker’s ...
How to Polish Your Speaking Skills: It's Time for T.I.P.S.
When requested to write an article about public speaking tips, I experienced an epiphany, of sorts. Now there’s a word I’ve never written, let alone spoken! Many people will do just about anything to avoid public speaking. Or, you may have said “Who’s got the time?” or “That’s not good use of my time.” Therein lies the epiphany; it’s all about time!
Choosing a Hot Keyword: Advice for Aspiring Public Speakers
When choosing keywords, you’ll want to stay away from using general terms like “speaker,” for example. This will only leave you competing with stereo speakers for a top ten spot in a search engine like Google. Don’t discard the word from your list altogether, but don’t make it number one either.
What to Do When an Audience Member Disagrees With You
Some people enjoy drawing attention to themselves by trying to trip you up on a fact or statistic during your presentation. A few will find something you say threatening to their secure view of the universe and want you to know that “ You are dead wrong!!” When this happens it is important to remember that you won’t be able to please everyone in your audience and you shouldn’t try. I personally feel that if I don’t say something that afflicts the comfortable I’m not really doing my job ...
So You're Going to Make a Speech
What Do I Talk About? Start by asking yourself three questions: 1. Who is my audience? (What do I know about the corporate culture or collective personality of the group?) 2. What do they want or need to know from me? 3. How long can or should I talk? Where Do I Get Material? If you're going to be addressing a particular group a few weeks from now, keep a small notebook handy to jot down ideas and situations related to your topic and audience. ...
How to Present Your Proposal at an Executive Meeting
What's the worst reaction you've ever gotten when you made an important presentation? Probably, it would come in second to the one I just heard about. A woman—ironically she was interviewing me for an article about "Knockout Presentations"—told me the story of her disaster. It was early in her career as a policy analyst. She was just out of school, proud of her MBA and working in her first real job. When her supervisor praised a report she'd done, she was thrilled. She ...
Five Tips for Overcoming Public Speaking Nerves
Your mouth is dry, heart palpitating, and knees knocking. You go into panic, facing a dreaded public speaking assignment.
Overcoming Your Fears of Public Speaking
You're waiting your turn to make a speech, when suddenly you realize that your stomach is doing strange things and your mind is rapidly going blank. How do you handle this critical time period?
To Insure Success in Speaking: Anticipate
We all know that to be a careful driver on the highways, we need always to anticipate. When we see brake lights ahead, we anticipate some traffic problem and slow down. If we come to an intersection we look ahead to see if anyone is entering it before us. In like manner, to be an effective speaker we need to anticipate.
Eliminate Performance Anxiety Forever
You’ve had many years of training in your craft as a performer, singer, actor etc. but if you still feel haunted by the ravages of Performance Anxiety your career may be in serious jeopardy.
How to Get Started In Public Speaking
Public speaking is among the five most feared activities human beings encounter. The majority of us fear it worse than anything else. Yet, the mastery of public speaking is an important tool in our business skill set. It’s never too early (or too late) to learn to speak in public. Every one needs to start somewhere. The best strategy is to look for non-threatening opportunities with familiar surroundings, friends and colleagues. Plan your speaking gigs in stages ...
Etiquette An Essential Ingredient to Your Success As a Public Speaker
Sadly, the public speaking circle has its fair share of individuals who think they have a right to be treated better than anyone else. Conventions of public speakers are quite a sight. It’s like battle of the egos, and to be perfectly honest the really big names tend to stay away from such gatherings. I know of a number of speakers who at one time threw a tantrum or acted in a very demanding way while being paid to speak, word subsequently spread like wildfire, and they found themselves ...
Pay Attention To Your Appearance!
During the coffee break of one conference I attended, whispers and giggles could be heard within the conversations of small huddles of delegates. Without asking, I knew what they were all talking about because our little group were talking about the same thing.
Get Speaking
On a recent Sunday evening, I watched a friend ‘graduate’ from a beginner’s class for stand-up comedians.
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