If you want to improve a speech, you need to record it so you can analyze it. This means making an audio recording, or better yet a video recording. And also making a manuscript of what you actually delivered to a live audience. Then you’re able to do an in-depth review of your speech content, […]
Read More...Less is More
As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Brevity makes strong structure. The punchline is the payoff. Traditional wisdom is that the shortest distance between the setup and the payoff is best. When a story has a long set up before getting to the joke, it’s said that the punchline is carrying […]
Read More...Public Speaking Tips for Webinars
Add Impact When You Present Through Webinars No matter what you level of public speaking experience, whenever you open your mouth, whether you’re talking to one person or a thousand, you usually want to get a specific message across. Anyone who sets out to present, persuade, and propel with the spoken word faces pitfalls. And, […]
Read More...Public Speaking – Make Every Word Count: Be a Memorable Speaker
In sales, what would happen if your prospects could vividly remember why others choose to do business with you? Would it be profitable for you if they felt that you were more focused on their needs than your competitors? You can have that impact with a memorable pitch, or speech. If people are making hiring decisions for consulting contracts or a large investment, they are probably going to be discussing with a team or committee what they heard from various vendors, consultants, or sales professionals. Your goal is to have them remembering and repeating your key ideas and benefits: you need to be a memorable speaker.
Read More...Make Every Word Count: Be a Memorable Speaker
In sales, what would happen if your prospects could vividly remember why others choose to do business with you? Would it be profitable for you if they felt that you were more focused on their needs than your competitors? You can have that impact with a memorable pitch, or speech. If people are making hiring decisions for consulting contracts or a large investment, they are probably going to be discussing with a team or committee what they heard from various vendors, consultants, or sales professionals. Your goal is to have them remembering and repeating your key ideas and benefits: you need to be a memorable speaker.
Your goal should be always to say something that will be remembered and repeated. If we ask audience members, “Who was the hit of last year’s convention?” usually they can recall the topic and that it was entertaining and dynamic, but if they can recite your key points, profound statements, or even that you appeared to know exactly what their lives are like, you’ve made yourself memorable. To be remembered and repeated, you need a simple structure for your speech. The following tips will help you construct your speech so that you and it will not be forgotten.
Read More...Do you want to impress your friends at cocktail parties?
As a public speaker you may think English is a hard languate. However here is a list of words that are difficult to translate into English:
Toska
Russian – Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
Mamihlapinatapei
Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start”
Jayus
Indonesian – “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh”
Iktsuarpok
Inuit – “To go outside to check if anyone is coming.”
Litost
Czech – Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, remarked that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.” The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.
Kyoikumama
Japanese – “A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement”
Tartle
Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.
Ilunga
Tshiluba (Southwest Congo) – A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person “who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.”
Prozvonit
Czech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”
Cafuné
Brazilian Portuguese – “The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.”
Schadenfreude
German – Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune. I guess “America’s Funniest Moments of Schadenfreude” just didn’t have the same ring to it.
Torschlusspanik
German – Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to “the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.” (Altalang.com)
Wabi-Sabi
Japanese – Much has been written on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.” (Altalang.com)
Dépaysement
French – The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.
Tingo
Pascuense (Easter Island) – Hopefully this isn’t a word you’d need often: “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.”
Hyggelig
Danish – Its “literal” translation into English gives connotations of a warm, friendly, cozy demeanor, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s likely something that must be experienced to be known. I think of good friends, cold beer, and a warm fire.
L’appel du vide
French – “The call of the void” is this French expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from high places.
Ya’aburnee
Arabic – Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.
Duende
Spanish – While originally used to describe a mythical, spritelike entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature, its meaning has transitioned into referring to “the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.” There’s actually a nightclub in the town of La Linea de la Concepcion, where I teach, named after this word.
Saudade
Portuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word “refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.” Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade.
Executive Speeches: How Can You Grab Your Audience?
Every year I tell dozens of San Francisco executives and Silicon Valley speech coaching clients “Your first thirty seconds of your executive communications are like the first page of a book or first seconds of a TV show or film. If you don’t make an impact and hint at more to come, you lose your audience.”
Read More...Effective Presentation Skills: Avoid Clichés Like the Plague
Avoid Clichés Like the Plague
If your goal is to become more effective in your presentation skills value your own opinion. Although we are amused with expressions such as “Make my day”, “Read my lips”, “Think outside of the box”, “I’ll be back” after a while they are so overused they go from “classic” to “cliché.”
Read More...Why should a CEO pay attention to a screenwriter?
I have attended many screen writing classes for fun. Not because I want to be a screen writer, but rather to give me insights and ideas for helping my executive clients deliver better presentations. After all Hollywood knows how to emotionally connect with their audience in a way most executives do not.
The class I have repeated several times is Robert McKee’s Story. Also the name of his very good book. Here are a couple of questions from a Harvard Business Review article where they interviewed Mr. McKee.
Why should a CEO or a manager pay attention to a screenwriter?
A big part of a CEO’s job is to motivate people to reach certain goals. To do that, he or she must engage their emotions, and the key to their hearts is story. There are two ways to persuade people. The first is by using conventional rhetoric, which is what most executives are trained in. It’s an intellectual process, and in the business world it usually consists of a PowerPoint slide presentation in which you say, “Here is our company’s biggest challenge, and here is what we need to do to prosper.” And you build your case by giving statistics and facts and quotes from authorities. But there are two problems with rhetoric. First, the people you’re talking to have their own set of authorities, statistics, and experiences. While you’re trying to persuade them, they are arguing with you in their heads. Second, if you do succeed in persuading them, you’ve done so only on an intellectual basis. That’s not good enough, because people are not inspired to act by reason alone.
Essentially, a story expresses how and why life changes.
Read More...How to Market Yourself by Digitally Cloning Yourself
Professional speakers, business coaches, presentation skills coaches, seminar leaders, consultants and entreneurs all have something in common! How do we position ourselves ahead of the competition. We do that when we can help our prospects get to know us in advance of their emails or calls. If you have been to my website fripp.com you know that whatever service you click on small “mini fripps” talk to you one on one about the reason you are searching for a speech coach, keynote speaker, or sales presentation skills trainer. Assuming this is something you would like to investigate for your own business here is an interview with my secret weapon and business adviser Bob Chesney.
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