5 Tips for Exciting Speeches

1. Open Hot, Close Hotter.
To grab audience attention and be remembered, start your presentation with a bang, not a limp, “Thanks, it’s nice to be here.” The first (and last) 30 seconds have the most impact on the audience. Save any greetings and gratitude until they’ve already grabbed the audience with a powerful opening. And don’t end with a whimper. Remember that last words linger. Unfortunately, many speakers close with, “Are there any questions?” Wrong! Instead, say, “Before I close, are there any questions?” Answer them. Then close on a high note.

2. Get the Inside Scoop.
Attendees at one of my seminars, “How to Be a Coach to Your Client,” want to know how they can personalize and add excitement and color to the speeches they craft for others. How, they ask, can they get those invaluable inside stories? I suggested they do what I do–interview the speaker’s client’s colleagues and family members. These people are familiar with the “stories” the speaker often tells, stories that have already been honed to what I call the “Hollywood model” (characters, dialogue, dramatic lesson learned). What insights and amusing stories can they share? Advise your members to ask others for input that can provide color and energy to a presentation.

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Getting Over the Jitters Before You Speak

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?

People ask me this question in all my speaking classes, but there is no single answer. You need to anticipate your speech mentally, physically, and logistically.

MENTALLY:

Start by understanding that you’ll spend a lot more time preparing than you will speaking. As a general rule, invest three hours of preparation for a half hour speech, a six to one ratio. When you’ve become a highly experienced speaker, you may be able to cut preparation time considerably in some cases, but until then, don’t skimp. Part of your preparation will be to memorize your opening and closing — three or four sentences each. Even if you cover your key points from notes, knowing your opening and closing by heart lets you start and end fluently, connecting with your audience when you are most nervous.

LOGISTICALLY:

Go to the room where you’ll be speaking as early as possible so you can get comfortable in the environment. If you will be speaking from a stage, go early in the morning when no one is there and make friends with the stage. Walk around on the area where you will be speaking, so the first time there is not when you deliver your talk.Then, during your presentation, you can concentrate on your audience, not your environment.

PHYSICALLY:

A wonderful preparation technique for small meetings is to go around shaking hands and making eye contact with everybody beforehand. For larger meetings, meet and shake hands with people in the front row at least, and some of the people as they are coming in the door. Connect with them personally, so they’ll be rooting for your success. We as speakers are rarely nervous about individuals, only when faced with the thought of an audience. Once you’ve met the audience or at least some of them, they become less scary.

It’s totally natural to be nervous. Try this acting technique. Find a private spot, and wave your hands in the air. Relax your jaw, and shake your head from side to side. Then shake your legs one at a time. Physically shake the tension out of your body.

Try not to sit down too much while you’re waiting to speak. If you’re scheduled to go on an hour into the program, try to sit in the back of the room so that you can stand up occasionally. It is hard to jump up and be dynamic when you’ve been relaxed in a chair for an hour. (Comedian Robin Williams is well known for doing “jumping jacks” to raise his energy level before going on stage.) Sitting in the back also gives you easy access to the bathroom and drinking fountain. There’s nothing worse than being stuck down front and being distracted by urgent bodily sensations.

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Sound Intelligent, Powerful, Polished, Articulate, and Confident

Do you want to sound intelligent, powerful, polished, articulate and confident? Of course you do! Voice coach Carol Fleming, PhD gave me some great insights based on her years of study and working with thousands of clients.

TO SOUND MORE INTELLIGENT:
Speak just a bit slower to allow yourself to select your most appropriate vocabulary and to give the impression of thoughtfulness.

TO SOUND MORE POWERFUL:
Use short, simple declarative sentences. You say what you mean and you mean what you say. Cut out any useless connectors, adjectives and adverbs, especially superlatives.

TO SOUND MORE POLISHED:
Never answer a question with a blunt ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Append a short phrase of clarification. For example, “No, I did not see it.” “Yes, I know Mary.”

TO SOUND MORE ARTICULATE:
Make a special effort to pronounce the final sound in a word and use its energy to carry over to the following word. Pay special attention to final ‘t’ and ‘ng.’

TO SOUND MORE CONFIDENT:
Carry your body up. Hold your head as if you had a crown on it. Don’t let your arms and legs have side to side motion when you move. Keep your elbows and knees close to the midline of your body.

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Story Development Ideas

You have read, or heard me say, stories make a speech or sales presentation more interesting, memorable and ‘visual.’ Remember, your audience remembers what they ‘see’ in their minds more than the words you use. In my sales training I recommend you call your satisfied clients and interview them about their experience of doing business with you.

Follow this formula:

  • Situation – the problem they had before you did business together
  • Solution – what product, service or advice did you give that solved that problem
  • Success – how has their condition changed…in their words.
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Get in the Game, but Not Without a Coach!

Get a what?
Champions get coached. In 1999 I won the World Championship of Public Speaking for Toastmasters International and have been speaking regularly ever since. Several years later, after a disastrous speech in Montreal, I went back to my hotel room, threw my head on my pillow, and faced the following reality: I need a coach badly!

Although I had never had a public speaking coach to aid in my considerable success to that point, I knew I needed one to take my speaking to the next level. Therefore, I decided to call a person who is supposed to be one of the best public speaking coaches in the country. I said, “I would like to be coached by you.” She asked, “Are you sure?” I said, “Yes. I did my research and I know you are the one I want to coach me?” She said, “Do you know how much I charge?” I said, “At this point, it would cost me more not to get coached.” She said, “Great!” Then she quoted her daily fee and I thought to myself, “Well, I am pretty happy with the skills that I have.”

Then I thought, “Wait a minute. Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world and he has a coach. All sports teams have coaches, and every extremely successful speaker I have ever heard of has had a coach. Wake up Craig. You need a coach!” Despite my reluctance, I decided to go for it and it was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. In fact, I signed up for two days! When you decide to get coached, you will find it to be one of your greatest decisions too as long as you follow these critical pieces of advice:

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In-Between Time

In-Between Time

by Craig Valentine

In-between time is what I refer to as the time between your major points. Of course you need to use this time to transition into the next story or example, but how you use this time can make the difference between a dry speech and an exciting one. One effective way you can use in-between time is to add more humor. Hopefully your stories have humor as well, and if you add humor between these stories, then your audience will really enjoy your speech.

For example, immediately after one story and just before the next one I may relate the following to add humor:

There’s a lady that used to work for me and she liked to tell me all of her problems. One day she said, “Craig, I’m sick of guys.” I said, “Oh no, here she goes again. What’s wrong?” She said, “All the guys I date are always the same.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “The last five guys I dated all had drinking problems.” I said, “Really? Where do you meet them?” She said, “At the bars!” I said, “Well, if you stop going to Drinkers R Us, then you might find a good man.”

[Now completely facing the audience] You know what the key to her situation is? If she wants to keep getting what she’s getting, she should keep doing what she’s doing. Ladies and gentlemen [I step forward to make my point] if you ever want to change what you are getting, all you have to do is change what you are doing, and most people are not using their gifts!

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The Most Important Part of the Speech!

“Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.“
—Aristotle

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What Talks Louder Than Money? Try Coaching!

(Your chance to eavesdrop on a conversation between Patricia Fripp and her friend, mergers and acquisitions specialist Mike Sipe.)

My friend Michael Sipe is a brilliant mergers and acquisitions specialist. Here’s a great business tip he gave me that you might adapt to your own business.

“We were involved in an acquisition search for a client I’ll call ‘Jane.’ I became aware that an internationally famous giftware store was for sale through a general business broker. My client was very interested, but the broker had already received three full-price offers.

“I could have just stopped there, but I had a good relationship with this brok er and persuaded him that my buyer might be a perfect match. I knew a little about the seller and suspected he had not hit it off with any of the other potential buyers who just wanted to pay their money and take over. I had a hunch the seller might be interested in more than money. He had personally built up the business over the years, regarded it like a child and his business was an integral part of his identity. My guess was that, while he wanted to sell it and retire, he secretly hoped to continue to be an influence in the business and to be connected after the sale. The other bidders apparently had no interest in his ‘interference,’ once they owned it.

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Tips for Marketing Success

From Fripp’s Confessions of an Unashamed Relentless, Self-Promoter audio album and book: Make It! So You Don’t Have to Fake It. 

Does your marketing match your image?

If you deliver a quality product or service, your marketing materials should reflect this.

Your image, reflected by your advertising, should do two things:

  • Convince people you’re worth doing business with.
  • Position you in the market.

Whether you’re at the top, middle, or bottom of the price scale, your image needs to communicate that. If your image isn’t consistent and compatible with your pricing and your level of service, you’re going to confuse and alienate your customers.

Bill McCurry, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for the Imaging Industry, told Garfinkel about the experiences of a client. This retailer visited a trade show and was attracted to a distinctive and obviously costly booth for a design firm. He asked them to send him some information. When the letter came, it was on shoddy looking stationery, sloppily typed.

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Fat and Skinny Words a Great Technique to be Understood

This is a great technique to be understood.

If your goal is to sound clear, concise, and credible this advice is invaluable.

Nothing can turn your audience or prospect off faster…

Good communicators
Good communicators understand fat and skinny words

… than using fat words when they’re hungry for skinny ones. Or vice versa.

I learned this exciting concept…

… from Dr. David Palmer, a Silicon Valley negotiations expert. In his negotiations training, he described “levels of abstraction.” Unless you can match your message to the expectations of your audience or talk at the same level at which they are listening, you won’t connect as well as you would like. This is true whether your audience is one person or one thousand.

Suppose you write the word “automobile” on a pad.

A simple concept. Going up to the next level of abstraction, you could write above it that the car is a “wheeled passenger vehicle,” then “surface transportation,” then “major force in the world’s economy.” This is making the word “automobile” fatter and fatter, larger and larger. These big ideas and abstractions are “fat words.” They are great for conveying the big picture, for inspiring ideas, for motivating.

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