Public Speaking Tips: Speak To Be Remembered and Repeated

Speak To Be Remembered and Repeated

Good public speaking advice for the serious student in you, by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE

“Speak to be remembered and repeated.” Isn’t that the goal of every communicator—to be remembered and repeated?

This is a key idea I reinforce at every Fripp speaking school. Actually, it is a key idea every time I have the opportunity to discuss speaking and presentation skills. Yes, it’s easier said than done. Here are a few key ideas.

· Speak in shorter sentences.

· Edit your sentences to a nub. Remember, Jerry Seinfeld said, “I will spend an hour taking an eight word sentence and making it five.” In comedy, the fewer the words between the set-up and the punch word, the bigger the laugh.

· Don’t step on your punch word which should be the final word or idea in the sentence. (Yes, this works for Jerry and his comedian brethren, and it also works for business communicators.)

· Choose the best punch word. For example, in the sentence, “You have to make an important decision today,” your punch word should be “decision.” So switch it around: “Today, you have to make an important DECISION!”

· If you have a sentence with two important words or phrases, put the more important is at the end. “Today, YOU have to make an important DECISION.” Or, “The important DECISION today is going to be made by YOU.”

· Perfect your pause. Deliver your punch word and then pause—and pause—and pause. Give your listeners time to digest what you’ve just said. Get comfortable with silence, and don’t be tempted to fill it with “um’s.”

· Repeat your key ideas more than once.

· Say something memorable.

Let us look at a few recent examples from the memorial for 60 Minutes’ Ed Bradley.

Fellow 60 Minutes reporter Steve Kroft said, “I learned a lot from Ed Bradley, and not just about journalism. I learned a lot about friendship, manners, clothes, wine, freshly cut flowers—which he had delivered to his office every week—and the importance of stopping and smelling them every once in awhile.”

Surprise guest Bill Clinton said, “Ed Bradley was a brilliant, insatiable, curious traveler on a relentless quest to get to the bottom of things. He was like the great jazz musicians he so admired. He always played in the key of reason. His songs were full of the notes of facts; but he knew to make the most of music you have to improvise. We’ll never forget what his solos were: the disarming smile; the disconcerting stare; the highly uncomfortable stretches of silence, the deceptively dangerous questions, and the questions that would be revealing, no matter what your answer was. Watching him was mesmerizing – because you knew you were watching a master at work.”

Learn more in Las Vegas January 29-31 with Darren LaCroix and at the Patricia Fripp Speaking and Presention Skills School.

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Successful Marketing Means that You Identify Prospective Clients

Looking for more business?

Marketing/PR expert Gary Purece gave me some advice it can help you!
If you want to learn how to better articulate your message why not tune into my Friday Webinar.
Friday, December 11, 2009
1:00 PM PST
How to Prepare and Present Persuasive Presentations
Business Experts Webinar
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SAVE 20% at checkout with this DISCOUNT CODE: 47fbeb53

Successful marketing means that you identify prospective clients and position yourself in the market so they choose you over your competition. When I sit down with clients who want to position their marketing, I seek the answers to four basic questions:

1.Who Is Your Potential Client? Who wants to buy or could be stimulated to want to buy? Who is in a position to buy what you sell? What geographical and financial factors affect this ability?

A good way to identify future clients is to listen — really listen — to those you have now. Their comments, especially negative ones, will help you tailor both your product and your approach to other prospects.

2.Why Will They Want To Buy? What emotional and physical factors will influence them? I just worked with an east coast psychiatrist who ran a practice with ten other psychiatrists and wanted to position herself. Our conversations quickly disclosed that her community was predominantly upwardly mobile professionals. Many of the women had delayed having children. Due to fertility drugs, a high percentage of families had twins, triplets, or more. We decided to focus her practice on these families, the first practice in the area to do that.

How did we do this? First, we realized her potential audience was geographical, that is, in her community rather than regional, national or international. These prospects had distinctive demographics. By appealing to a unique aspect, we hit on her core group. She’s now hugely successful in her practice.

3.What Angle Should You Take? How is your product or service unique? Why is it perfect for your target audience? How is it different from everyone else’s? How will it fulfill your core group’s needs in a way that no one else can?

This is positioning yourself in the market. (Remember how Avis advertised, “We try harder.”) As an example, when other advertising consultants do presentations, they talk about budgets, print versus TV, soft versus hard sell. I position myself by emphasizing that you start by targeting your audience, positioning your product, and creating distinctive selling propositions. Lots of mom-and-pop businesses, confronted by super stores, can’t compete or even survive unless they find a unique niche to fill.

4.How Are You Going To Sell It? We all know people with great ideas, products, and inventions. They spend a fortune developing this product, but it sits there because they have no idea what to do with it. Is there a system in place to put your product in the customers’ hands and return their money to you? Or do you need to create one?

Market to your core group, and position yourself among the competition. That’s million-dollar marketing!

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Consulting Over Fifty–Where Gray Matters & Experience Counts

My smart and entertaining friend Rick Hubbard has started a group in LinkedIn for Consultants Over 50. Rick will interview me on January 4th, 2010 at 10am PST. When you sign in he asks for our elevator pitch. This is what I wrote….

"Fripp builds leaders and transforms sales teams by increasing the clarity, specificity and persuasiveness of the presentations."

Subject: Rick Hubbard invites you to join Consulting Over Fifty–Where Gray Matters & Experience Counts on LinkedIn

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Powerful Public Speaking: Personal Connection Edge

This was written by my negotiations expert associate, David Palmer.

Personal Connection Edge
by David Palmer, PhD

Dozens of factors figure into your audience’s minds, whenever and whatever you’re teaching, communicating or selling. You create a competitive edge when you establish a personal connection.  You must connect emotionally and intellectually with both individuals and members of an audience, so they like you and trust you . . . more than any other training they have received or sales person’s message they have heard. They’re just like you; if you don’t trust the messenger, you don’t trust the message.

How do you get the Personal Connection edge? Do the following:

• Focus:  It’s all about them!  If your presentation does not respond to their concerns and you grind on with a prepared presentation that is not focused on their concerns, or you are too technical for the individual or audience, they will decide that you don’t care about them or their problems. Once they get back to work, they won’t make your training applicable to their jobs, or invest in your solution to their problem. Rather, pick up on their concerns, and address them.

• Be Confident & Sincere:  If you appear nervous or unsure, you may seem devious or incompetent.

• Eye Communication:  Look your listeners right in the eyes for a complete thought or sentence as you talk convincingly about your ideas and information.  Your eyes darting about the room is not connection or communication.  Smile.

• Divide & Conquer:  Shake hands with everyone . . . and look them in the eyes as you do it . . . when they enter the room.  Connect with them so you see them as individuals.  You’ll both feel more comfortable and you’ll become more memorable to them.  (People are usually shyer in groups of strangers than one-on-one contacts.)

• Technology:  Use technology to enhance your presentation, not drown it.  It can help keep you on track, but it cannot establish trust.

• Keep It Simple & Memorable:  When your listener or audience debriefs after your presentation or sales conversation, you want them to remember what you said more than they learned in other training; or in a selling situation more than another sales presentation.  Therefore, summarize your key talking points into snappy sound bites that are easy to write and remember.  Make them interesting and repeatable.  What are the three to five key points you want them to remember about the information and you?

• Avoid Jargon:  Steer clear of overdoing technical language and industry jargon.  Rehearse your presentation well in advance with your spouse across the dinner table or a team member at work.  If there is anything they don’t understand, you are not focusing on their interests, or you are making it too complicated.  Your goal is to be understood and sound conversational as you do it.

• Tell Great Success Stories:  People learn to resist a sales presentation, or they go to a meeting with a closed mind, but no one can resist a good story.  “Imagine four months from now you go to work and…” Paint your listeners a picture of less frustration, more reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Let the person you are communicating with “see” themselves in a different light.  Use the Situation, Solution, Success formula.  Take a lesson from Hollywood.  Give your stories interesting characters and dialogue, plus a dramatic lesson that your prospects can relate to.

•  Rehearse:  The first thirty seconds and the last thirty seconds of your presentation or sales conversation have the most impact.  Invest your time to create something original and interesting at the beginning and at the end.  Then, commit them to memory.  Do not shortchange your rehearsals.  Three to five rehearsals won’t do it.  Thirty to fifty rehearsals put you ahead of other speakers or sales professionals and give you even more confidence.  Know what you are going to say so well you can forget it!

• Bottom Line:  Everything else being equal, you’re way ahead of any other speaker or sales professional when your audience of one or one thousand relates to you, likes you, and trusts you.  Remember, they must first trust you before they can trust the message.

Fripp Virtual Training, FrippVTIf you and your sales team are losing out because of poor presentation skills, why not get the help you need on your own schedule?

Imagine a training program that gives you 24/7 access to one of the most in-demand executive speech coaches and sales presentation experts. Fripp Virtual Training is designed to be immediately engaging and makes it fun to learn. If you are a novice presenter or a seasoned professional, you will find the content both practical and relevant.

Sign up for your complimentary seven-day trial and discover how Fripp VT can transform you and your team. Fripp VT delivers high-caliber comprehensive presentation and sales presentations skills training with built in accountability. http://frippvt.com

“In my 12 years in sales and marketing, you are the most dynamic, charismatic, and knowledgeable sales presentation trainer and executive speech coach that I know. After your presentation skills training, both my sales and technical support team are closing more sales!”
– Bill Lewis, Director of Sales and Marketing, North America, Unitech America, Inc.

Executive Speech Coach and Hall of Fame Keynote Speaker Patricia Fripp works with individuals and companies who realize that powerful, persuasive presentation skills give them a competitive edge.

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Selling Yourself And Your Ideas to Senior Management

Polish Up Your Public Speaking Skills in Advance!

It’s no secret… the higher up the corporate ladder you go the more important your public speaking skills become.

If you have your sights set on increased responsibility and the position and salary that go with them you will need to position yourself ahead of the crowd in advance. At all stages of your career you need to sell yourself, your ideas, your value, and your ability. To position yourself for promotion you need to learn what it takes to sell yourself and your ideas to senior management. That requires learning high level public speaking skills; learn from these public speaking tips:

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Robert Fripp joins Keynote Speaker Patricia Fripp at NSA

My brother, legendary guitarist, Robert Fripp will be speaking with me at American Payroll’s Pay Heroes convention May 2010 in Washington DC.
Our presentation will be “How to Be a Hero for More Than One Day.” Brother played guitar on David Bowie’s song Heroes. Many consider Robert as brilliant a public speaker as he is a guitarist. As a proud sister I agree.

Enjoy this video clip of us speaking together before the National Speakers Association.

For more information on engaging Robert Fripp to speak before your group visit:
http://RobertFrippSpeaks.com

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Say It With Fewer Words

Reducing Your Hour-Long Speech

You’ve got a great, major presentation, and suddenly you’re asked if you can get your message across in five minutes! Don’t panic. For today’s television generation, sound bites can be more powerful than lengthy dissertations. Here’s how to compress your speech without losing impact.

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5 Sure-Fire Tips for Great Speeches

1. Come out punching!

Grab your audience’s attention. One way is to make a startling statement. For a recent speech to the National Speakers Association, I walked out and immediately started building a word picture: “Columbus, Ohio, December, zero degrees, 2,000 people trudging through the snow to hear four speakers…”

Don’t waste your audience’s time with trivialities. I heard a speaker addressing a San Francisco Sales and Marketing Executives audience, starting with how nice it was to be there, how great the weather was, and how he loves our restaurants. Who cares? I didn’t race across town to hear him talk about weather and restaurants. I was there to hear about sales and marketing ideas and he was supposed to be an expert.

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Scoring with Overseas Audiences

How to “Speak Their Language” Even When It Isn’t English

Now I finally know why my friends are so interested in speaking abroad. It is a wonderful, rewarding, exhilarating, ego-building experience, even when the audience doesn’t speak your language.

Why forego local engagements to fly half-way around the world, suffer terrible jet lag, and put your reputation on the line when you don’t know how a non-English-speaking audience will accept your message? You’d have to be crazy.

That’s what I used to think, so I usually turned down overseas work. But in November of 1998, I spoke for three public seminars and four in-house meetings in Taiwan, a total of seven Chinese-speaking audiences. It was such a triumph that I can’t wait to go back. Here is what you can do to have a similar success.

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