Get It Done: Thinking On Your Feet And Building A Speech Real Quick

March 9th, 2010
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Speakers Need To Know How To Quickly Create A Speech

Speakers Need To Know How To Quickly Create A Speech

If I asked you to give a speech, how much time would you need to get ready to give the speech (including writing it)? Could you do it if I gave you half as much time? How about if I gave you 5 minutes? We don’t always control the situations in which we are asked to give a speech, knowing how to prepare one in just a few minutes is a key speaker skill…

Just Where Do You Start?

I guess the best place to start our discussion about what to do when you are put on the spot and asked to deliver a speech RIGHT NOW, is at the beginning. It’s pretty clear that if somebody is asking you to give a speech all of sudden, then they can’t be too picky about what you’ll talk about.

This is where you get some latitude. In order to pull off this quick speech creation thing, you’re going to have to pick a topic to speak about that you already both know and love. I’m hoping that it’s clear to you that you still need to keep your audience in mind, but because of the short amount of time that you have, this is the one time that you get to start with yourself first.

Since it is so critical that you already know your topic well, pick what you want to speak about and then spend a moment or two trying to think about how you can make this subject appeal to your audience. For example, if what you know really well is how to schedule family vacations and you’re going to be talking to a group of mothers, then focusing on the logistics of what to pack and keeping the family happy during the trip will generally be what you need to focus on in order to make your story appeal to them.

It’s All In The Details

Although you won’t have a lot of time to create your on-the-spot speech, it still needs to be interesting. A lack of time to prepare a speech is not a license to be boring. It’s time to whip out a piece of paper, you’ve got some writing to do.

What you need to write down is a list of things that you will want to cover in your speech. This is an important list because it holds the key to making your speech interesting to your audience. Write down the sequence of items that you want to cover, then take a second look at it.

The key here will be to make sure that the material that you will be covering flows. It needs to start some place and then build up to a natural conclusion. If you aren’t careful, then due to your limited time it will just be a jumbled collection of pieces of information. Use just a bit of your limited time to sort and rearrange your discussion points so that they present a complete story.

Houston, We Have Lift-Off

With picking a topic and creating a list of items to discuss, you will have used up a sizable chunk of the limited time that you have before you’ll be on the stage. What to do with the few remaining minutes that you have left? Simple: rehearse.

As we all know, the first few words out of your mouth during any speech are the most important – this is how the audience makes their decision whether or not to bother listening to you. You’ve got to mentally practice what you are going to say. Try out different phrases and word orders until you come up with something that works best for you.

What All Of This Means For You

Sorry, you don’t run the world just yet. This means that no matter how good of a planner you are, there will be times in which you get surprised by a request to give a speech with little or no time for you to prepare what you are going to say.

See this challenge as an opportunity to grow your speaking skills. Pick a topic to speak on that you already know well. Shape it to meet the interests of your audience. Make sure that you take a moment or two to rehearse what you are going to say in your head so that your first words will resonate with your audience.

In the end, if you believe in yourself and your ability to deliver a great speech, you will do just fine. In fact, who knows, maybe you are one of those speakers who gives the best speech of their life when they have had the least amount of time to prepare for it!

If you had 5 minutes to prepare a speech, what would you spend the most time doing?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

So here’s a quiz for you: who has been the best speaker in the past 100 years? Not an easy question to answer, eh? Even those of us who don’t spend a lot of time studying history can come up with an impressive list of names. What made them so good and can we become as good as they were?

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AccComm Life Just Got Better For iPhone/Andriod/BB Users

March 6th, 2010

Loyal Readers,

It has been brought to my attention that the AccComm blog’s appearance on touch-based smart phones was, shall we say, poor at best.

I think that I may have found a way to solve this problem. I’ve installed some new software that should change the AccComm into an iPhone application “looking” site, complete with Ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android or BlackBerry touch mobile device.

As with all great experiments, we’re going to have to see how this goes. If you’ve got one of these devices do me a favor and check the site out and then post a comment to let me know how it looks — you should be able to switch between the old (“mobile unfriendly”) look & feel and the new (“mobile friendly”) look & feel.

Thanks for all of you help in making the AccComm better!

- Dr. Jim Anderson

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Counterstrike: How To Deal With Hecklers

March 2nd, 2010
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Dealing With A Heckler During A Speech Is Like Being Caught In A Dog Fight

Dealing With A Heckler During A Speech Is Like Being Caught In A Dog Fight

Fighting Back

Nothing makes me more angry than when someone is rude enough to interrupt me when I’m giving a speech. I mean come on, I’ve worked hard to prepare to give this speech and here I am dealing with all of the nerves, logistics, etc. that a speaker needs to stay on top of and all of a sudden I have to put up with this? There has got to be a way to get this person to shut up and sit down, right?

Preparing For A Fight

The best way to deal with a heckler is to do your best to prevent them from becoming a heckler in the first place. A heckler can show up in any audience and so part of your preparation to give a speech, you need to spend some time taking steps to defuse the things that might set a heckler off. Judi Bailey has done some research into just exactly what you can do and she’s got the following suggestions:

  • Research Your Audience: The easiest way to invite a hacker to attack you is to not take the time to understand who you’ll be presenting to. A key part of this understanding is to make sure that you know who in the audience will be supporting what you have to say, and who you need to watch out for.
  • Double Check Your Data: The Achilles heel that trips up most speakers when it comes to dealing with hecklers lies in the information that you are presenting. If you aren’t careful and you present information that is either incorrect or out of date, then you will have opened a door for hecklers to attack.
  • Watch Your Time: When are you going to be delivering your speech? If it’s in the morning, then your audience is going to be fresh and ready to listen to more detailed information. However, the later in the day that you go, the less willing your audience is going to be to absorb the data that you’ve based your speech on.
  • Mind Your Purpose: One of the key ways to negate the impact of a heckler is for you to stay focused on what really matters to your audience. By making sure that what you are talking about is what they want to hear you’ll be able to keep everyone’s attention and reduce the chance that a heckler will rise to the surface.

Dealing With A Fight When It Happens

Even with all of the best preparation in the world, you will still get the occasional heckler. That means that you need to have a plan for dealing with them when they show up. Judi has the following suggestions for defusing these volatile situations:

  • Establish Guidelines: At the start of your speech you have a unique opportunity to layout some guidelines for everyone to follow. These guidelines can include telling everyone what topics will and won’t be covered, what people should do if they object to what you are saying, and explaining if there will be an opportunity to ask questions during your presentation.
  • Be Like A Ninja: If you do have a heckler stand up and take issue with something that you’ve said, then you have an opportunity to use your built-in ninja skills to deal with the situation. The simplest way to deal with a heckler is to side-step their comments. This means that you need to deal with the heckler, then step to the side to show the audience that you are moving on and keep on speaking.
  • Take Them On: This is sort of the nuclear option for speakers – dealing directly with a heckler. Clearly there are all sorts of risks associated with this approach; however, it can be the most direct and decisive way to move beyond the distraction that a heckler is causing. Keep in mind that your goal is to deliver the most value to the audience, not to embarrass the heckler. Acknowledge their point, tell them to sit down, and move on.

What All Of This Means For You

Every public speaker needs to realize that hecklers come with the territory. Preparing to deal with them before a speech starts is the key to boosting your odds of successfully dealing with them.

You need to take steps as you prepare to deliver your speech and as you start to talk to your audience in order to minimize the chances of a heckler standing up and causing a disruption.

No matter how you choose to deal with a heckler, they are your responsibility. Realizing that you can’t make them go away, the next best thing that we can all do is to be ready to deal with them when they do show up…

What do you think the best way to prepare to deal with a heckler is?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

If I asked you to give a speech, how much time would you need to get ready to give the speech (including writing it)? Could you do it if I gave you half as much time? How about if I gave you 5 minutes? We don’t always control the situations in which we are asked to give a speech, knowing how to prepare one in just a few minutes is a key speaker skill…

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Inside The Mind Of A Heckler

February 23rd, 2010
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Just What Is A Heckler Thinking About?

Just What Is A Heckler Thinking About?

It’s All About Control

If you could wish for just one thing before you give your next speech in public, what would it be? Sure we’d all like to be able to talk like Tony Robbins, move a crowd like Zig Ziglar, or even have a powerful story to tell like Rudy Giuliani. However, I’m willing to bet good money that after considerable thought, we’d all settle for spending our wish on making sure that there were no hecklers in the audience.

The reason that speakers fear hecklers so much isn’t that they are so rude. Rather it’s an issue of control – we have it and they want it. The person up on the stage who is speaking (that’s you) “owns” the crowd. When a heckler starts to harass you, they are trying to wrestle control of the crowd away from you.

In order to start to find out how to deal with hecklers, the very first step is to take a step back and understand just who they are. It turns out that they (normally) are not wild-eyed radicals. Instead, they are very much people just like you and me. They are speaking up because they are feeling enormous pressure for some reason. This leads to a feeling of being powerless, intimidated, uncomfortable, or simply being overlooked. This is what is what turns them into a heckler.

It’s very easy for a speaker to lose control when a heckler starts to verbally assault them. However, you need to realize that when a heckler starts to speak, very quickly the audience will recognize them for what they are – a disruption.

Why Do They Do It?

Judi Bailey has looked into the psychology behind why people become hecklers. She reports that mental health experts agree that a heckler’s disorderly conduct is a symptom of an unmet need.
Just what kind of unmet need they are dealing with will determine what action you will need to take. Judi has created an acronym, H-O-S-T-I-L-E that can help speakers to quickly classify the type of heckler that they are dealing with:

  • Heckler: these are the ones who are simply being rude to you. The reason that they are doing this is because they have a feeling of low personal worth and they are trying to build themselves up by getting into a shouting match with you.
  • Over-zealous: a strong need for approval causes this type of heckler to always want to lead a conversation. They’ll show up most often if you ask the audience a question – they will be the one who wants to answer it before anyone else.
  • Squawker: the ultimate source of negativity, this type of heckler will poo-poo any idea or proposal. The reason that they are doing this is because it’s easy to do (doesn’t take a lot of thinking to say “no” to a new idea) and because they desperately need acknowledgement.
  • Turned-Off: the heckler who isn’t confronting you directly, but who is doing something else – like having a phone call in the middle of your speech. This may be partly your fault because they very clearly have an unmet need for connection.
  • Intimidator: it’s all about power for this type of heckler. They are more than willing to sit through a speech as long as they are the ones doing the speaking. They are easy to spot because the vocabulary that they will use will be aggressive.
  • Lost: another way to refer to this heckler is “clueless”. For whatever reason they’re just not “getting” what you’re talking about and so they can keep asking the same pointless questions. Clearly this type of heckler has a need for either a direction to go in or information that they can use.
  • Expert: we’ve all seen this one before – he / she thinks that they know more than the speaker (and they may) and they’re going to let everyone else know it. What we’re looking at here is a clear need for personal recognition.

What All Of This Means For You

I’m sorry to report that to the best of my knowledge, there are no magic wishes available to speakers. This means that you’ll never be able to start a speech with the guarantee that you won’t interrupted by a heckler.

The key point that you always need to keep in mind is that no matter how inappropriate their behavior is, they are generally just people like you and me. However, because of their current situation they feel compelled to speak out.

Realizing that there are different types of hecklers is the first step in learning to deal with them. Once you are able to classify the type of heckler that you are dealing with, you’ll be well on your way to making sure that control of your speech stays firmly in your hands.

What type of heckler do you think is the most disruptive?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Nothing makes me more angry than when someone is rude enough to interrupt me when I’m giving a speech. I mean come on, I’ve worked hard to prepare to give this speech and here I am dealing with all of the nerves, logistics, etc. that a speaker needs to stay on top of and all of a sudden I have to put up with this? There has got to be a way to get this person to shut up and sit down, right?

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How To Rig A Speech To Get The Outcome You Want Every Time

February 16th, 2010
Image Credit If You Stack The Deck, Then You'll Win Every Time

If You Stack The Deck, Then You'll Win Every Time

You can’t always do it all by yourself. If you want to make a lasting impression on your audience, then sometimes you just gotta bring in some help to pull it off. Speakers who are ready to move up to the next level in their speaking often come to me and ask for advice. Now that they’ve gotten over their fear of speaking, they want to move on and start to make more of an impact with their audience. It’s time to bring out an advanced speaking skill – rigging a speech.

The Setup

If as a speaker you can put aside your ego long enough to admit that sometimes if you really want to make a lasting impression on your audience, then you are going to have to allow others to help you, then you’ll be half-way there.

An advanced speaking technique is to work with an outsider to act as a “plant” in the audience. Having somebody in the audience who you control gives you enormous power as a speaker when it comes to steering the audience’s mood and reactions.

The most important part of stacking the deck is to make sure that you take the time to rehearse what you want to happen with your partner in crime – these things don’t just happen by themselves.

The Action

When you rig a speech, you need to make sure that you’ve carefully scripted what you want to happen. The three most common uses of a plant are to generate anger, humor, and questions.

Having a member of your audience stand up and angrily shout something out or accuse you of something is a fantastic tool; however, it’s just about as dangerous as nitroglycerin. This is an unexpected action – your audience will not be expecting it and so it will wake them up and grab their attention. I’ve used this one when I knew that what the audience would be thinking at a certain point was directly opposite to what I was telling them. Since you knew that it was coming, you have a fantastic response ready for them, this calms your angry audience member down, and everyone else is very impressed with you. That’s exactly what I did and it took the tension out of the room.

Humor is difficult enough to try to do by yourself let alone with a partner, but if you can pull it off you’ll be able to make a lasting impression on your audience. As with all types of humor, timing is everything here. One of my favorite techniques is to have my plant ask a question and then we end up getting involved in a very fast back-and-forth dialog that amazes and entertains everyone. Once upon a time I answered my plant’s question by saying that something would take 1 year, they replied with 2, I said “3″, they said “4″ and so on.

Finally, one of the worst things that a speaker can do is to wrap up a speech by asking “does anyone have any questions” and then be greeted by dead silence. This is when having a plant can save your life: have them stand up and ask an interesting or controversial question just to get things going. Since you know what they are going to ask, you can structure your speech so that your answer to that question is really part of your speech.

What All Of This Means For You

When you are ready to take your speaking skills up to the next level, starting to “seed” the audience with your trained agents is a great way to ensure that you are able to control how the speech will flow. These agents can control the audience’s mood: get them angry, make them laugh, or ask the questions that they are all thinking about.

As with all tools, the planted agent requires skill to use. You have to take the time both to structure your speech in such a way as to accommodate your plant and to rehearse what each of you is going to say before the big day. Do it right and you’ll have left your audience with a positive lasting impression.

Under what circumstances do you think it would be a bad idea to plant someone in your audience?


Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

If you could wish for just one thing before you give your next speech in public, what would it be? Sure we’d all like to be able to talk like Tony Robbins, move a crowd like Zig Ziglar, or even have a powerful story to tell like Rudy Giuliani. However, I’m willing to bet good money that after considerable thought, we’d all settle for spending our wish on making sure that there were no hecklers in the audience.

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Posted in audience | 2 Comments »

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