Tips on How to Give an Acceptance Speech Accepting an award is like walking a tightrope. You need to be gracious, grateful, and humble, yet not so humble or self-deprecating that the audience thinks you are trivializing the honor. In May of 2022, Dan Maddux, my best long-time client and Executive Director of the American […]

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Congratulations! You’ve been asked to moderate a panel. This is a great opportunity to build your reputation and add value to your customers. Moderating a panel can be more challenging than delivering a keynote speech. As you probably realize, when you moderate a panel discussion, you have multiple responsibilities and many more elements to stay […]

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The Importance of the Pause in Public Speaking and Executive Presentations can not be over estimated. Continuing my comparison with Hollywood..

Alan Alda says, “It is the stuff between the lines that makes it a great performance.”

(I know I hate that word stuff. However, it is an actual quote.)

When you pause the audience has time to digest what you have just said. The faster you speak, the more you have to open up your talk with silence.

Consider where you have a comma, period, paragraph, and exclamation mark, an underline or … Use this as a guide for pauses.

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Give a Speech! Frippicism: People do business with people they know. Every service club and community group is looking for a free speaker next Thursday at lunchtime. Okay, it could be Wednesday morning at breakfast or even in Zoom. You get the point! If that is you, do not overlook a magnificent marketing opportunity.

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When you open your presentation, you have just thirty seconds to command your audience’s attention. Don’t waste your opening words. Prepare a winning opening and give it extra attention as you rehearse your presentation. A relevant and compelling quote is one way to open a presentation and engage your audience. General Eisenhower said, “Leadership is […]

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The National Speakers Associations’ first president Bill Gove told me, “Fripp, the written word is for the eye. The spoken word is for the rhythm.” Understanding the difference between the written word and the spoken word was just one sign of Bill’s brilliance as a speaker. Imagine you are having a conversation with a friend, […]

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The purpose of a speaker’s introduction is to establish their credentials, to create interest from the audience, and often to sell the importance of the subject to that audience at that time. Recently at a client’s conference, one of my roles and responsibilities was to introduce other speakers, all of whom I had recommended. A […]

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My brother Robert Fripp, is an internationally-acclaimed guitarist, founding and ongoing member of King Crimson worked in a hotel dance band while going to college. It may interest you to know that he took the job over from a friend who moved to London. His friend was Andy Summers, of the famed rock band, The […]

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