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 […]
Read More...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 […]
Read More...Acting Techniques for Speakers
This article was written by my pal Ed Brodow. It will be featured in Professional Speaker magazine, the publication of the National Speakers Assn. As Ed interviewed me for this, and I found it very interesting, I asked if I could offer it to my friends and visitors to my website. He granted his permission and I […]
Read More...Capturing Your Audience: (Part II)
Previously, we discussed the components of speech preparation and delivery that will make your presentation shine when you are addressing your association audiences. However, the speech only becomes truly vibrant when you tie all of the pieces together and package them into a compelling presentation. Remember humor helps freshen content, movement keeps the audiences’ eyes […]
Read More...Capturing Your Audience: (Part I)
Today’s audiences have very short attention spans. They are stimulation junkies with limited interest levels. Their television habits have coined a new term–channel surfing. With the advent of remote control no one watches anything that stands still enough to bore. Click, switch, fast forward, record and mute give them power over the medium. Sub-standard content, […]
Read More...Presenting Your Talk – For Business and Professional Speakers
The big day has come. You’re ready to deliver your talk. But there are still a few final things to do before you face your audience. Check in early. Arrive early so you can check out the logistics of the room in which you’ll be speaking. Where is the platform? Where will you be when […]
Read More...Preparing Your Talk: Developing & Delivering Your Speech
One of the best ways to promote your product or service and expand your customer base is also one of the cheapest. Interested? It’s public speaking. I know this from first hand experience. When I started out, I had no public speaking experience, but I studied what the professional speakers did. What I learned from […]
Read More...The Danger of Using the Web as a Resource for Your Humor
The web is a great resource for information. There are vast quantities of information on everything from aardvarks to zoology. You’d also think it would also be an excellent resource for humor. Let me caution you. You must be careful using the web as a source of humor. There are hundreds of thousands of amateurs […]
Read More...If You Want More Humor in Your Presentation(s)
An article on public speaking and humor I want to introduce you to one of Three Musketeers of Speech Writing… John Cantu is a San Francisco comedy legend, owner and producer of the legendary Holy City Zoo, who helps you laugh all the way to the bank. He’s written material for Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller, […]
Read More...Avoid Clichés – Like the Plague
Whether you’re writing or speaking, clichés will weaken your message and cause your audience to tune out. Here are Fripp’s Four Foolproof Tips for making your point: You MUST use original material. The audience will forgive you ANYTHING but being boring. If someone else has already said it, say it in a completely different way. […]
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