• 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.

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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 […]

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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, […]

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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 […]

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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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Ask for great evaluations in advance! Whenever you deliver seminars or break-out sessions, greet the attendees at the door and shake their hands. Start your presentation by asking the audience what they want and expect from their time with you. What ingredients are needed before they can rate you excellent?

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“Public speaking is the only regularly-performed public art where the majority of performers refused to submit to the artistic conventions.” That’s the opinion of Chicago speech writer Dan Conley. Prior to going independent, Dan was the speech writer for Virginia Governor Doug Wilder, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, and IBM’s Senior VP for Sales Bill […]

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