Posts Tagged ‘introduction’

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The Power Of Poetry In Your Next Speech

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
Image Credit The Power Of Poetry Can Transform Your Next Speech

The Power Of Poetry Can Transform Your Next Speech

If you want to add some class to your next speech, if you are looking for a way to make your audience come to tears or break out in laughter, then perhaps what you need to do is to incorporate some poetry into your speech. I’m not talking the “Roses are red, Violets are blue…” variety, but rather poems that really mean something and which can lend their weight to your speech.

Just What Is This Thing Called Poetry?

Just in case you’ve been out of school for just a bit too long, maybe we should take a step back and make sure that we’re all on the same page when it comes to this poetry thing. The good folks over at Wikipedia seem to have a pretty good handle on it when they define poetry as being a:

“Literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm…”

We all know about the importance of public speaking and poetry is yet another way to get our points across. Because of the way that the words are put together in a poem, they can easily flow off of your tongue and into your audience’s mind. When your audience hears a line of poetry, they process it differently from everything else that you’ve been saying. It can almost instantly cause a reaction to occur in your audience.

The poems that we have all heard were written by famous, what else, poets. What this means is that when you add their poetry to your speech you’ll also be adding a new level of importance to what you are saying.

What’s The Best Way To Use A Poem In Your Next Speech?

The power of poetry is something that you can add to your next speech in order to make sure that your speech makes an impression on your audience. Celia Berrell writes a lot of poetry and she points out that you can’t add an entire poem to your speech, instead you’ll have to add just pieces and parts.

When you reach the point in your speech that you’ll start to recite the part of the poem that you’ve selected, you’ll find that you now have a license to do more. You can use more gestures and you can use more vocal variety to convey your message. You audience’s listening skills will be peaked because hearing poetry is not something that they do every day. It’s poetry so people expect you to act like a poet while you are reciting the poem.

The power of a poem comes from the specific words that make it up as well as the sequence in which they flow. In terms of presentation tips, clearly you’ve got some memorization to do here. On top of that you’ll need to take the time to practice, practice, practice. Reading poetry is probably not something that you do every day and so you are going to have to invest the time and energy that it’s going to take so that when you recite the poem, it sounds natural.

Finally, Celia makes a good point when she points out that just like you, your audience probably doesn’t encounter poetry every day. Therefore you can’t just hit them over the head with a poem right off the bat in your speech. Instead, you need to take the time to introduce both the poem and the poet. Give some backstory on when and why the poem was written. Tell them what the meaning of the poem is before you share the actual poem with them. By doing this you’ll prepare them to be wowed by the words of the poem.

What Does All Of This Mean For You

Even the most unread among us has heard some poetry at some point in our lives. The people who write the classic poems really know how to use words to create lyrical phrases that stir the memory and generate deep feelings.

Your next speech can tap into the power of poetry if you’ll just take the time to work some poetry into it. Take the time to prepare your audience for the poem that you’ll be sharing with them and then keep it short and to the point. Taking the time to carefully practice your delivery will allow you to ensure that the poem makes a lasting impression.

The goal of every speech is to make a lasting impression on your audience. The poet Mary Elizabeth Coleridge knew how hard it was to tap into an audience’s memory when she wrote:

Strange Power, I know not what thou art,
Murderer or mistress of my heart.
I know I’d rather meet the blow
Of my most unrelenting foe
Than live—as now I live—to be
Slain twenty times a day by thee.

Take the time to work some poetry into your next speech and you’ll have found a way to make a lasting impression on your audience.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: How long of a poem do you think that you could work into a speech without losing your audience?

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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

You’ve got great ideas trapped in you. You know the importance of public speaking and you want to use your speaking skills to make your audience’s lives better. The problem is that if you aren’t careful, what you say during your speech will just go in one ear and out the next. How can you make your next speech more “sticky”?

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It’s All About The Introductions…

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
Image Credit
Proper Introductions Can Change A Speech For The Better

Proper Introductions Can Change A Speech For The Better

Did you know that how well a speech is going to turn out can be determined before you even open your mouth? It turns out that introductions are one of the most important things that that set the tone for a speech. If done correctly, then you’re going to have an easy time coming out on top. If not, well then there’s just no way that you can win…

Introducing – You!

In a perfect world, you would have someone introduce you before any speech that you gave. Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world. This means that all too often we find ourselves in the awkward situation where we have to introduce ourselves. When this happens (and it DOES happen), you need to be ready to say the right things.

The trick with this kind of introduction is that you need to walk a fine line – you are special and the audience is lucky to have you there to give a speech, but you really can’t come out and say that. Instead, you are going to have to find a way to allow them to reach that conclusion all by themselves.

One of the best ways to do this is to use your self-delivered introduction to communicate your passion for the topic that you will be talking on. By taking the time to explain how you came to care so much about the topic you will be able to show your audience that you know what you are talking about and why they should listen to what you have to say.

Introduce Your Audience To Each Other

If you want your audience to pay attention to what you have to say, you’re going to have to find a way to make them feel comfortable listening to you. One rather unique way to go about doing this is to halt before you start your speech and get them to do something for you.

What you are going to want to have them do is to stand up and take just a moment to introduce themselves to the rest of the audience. Of course the size of your audience matters – if it’s too big, then you can’t have everyone introduce themselves to everyone else. However, for smaller groups asking everyone to share their name and one other piece of information (where they are from, why they are there, etc.) can be a great way to change everyone’s view of your speech.

Instead of showing up and sitting with a bunch of strangers to listen to a speaker that they don’t know, something will have changed. Now they’ll be sitting among people who they know and with whom they have something in common.

As a speaker this will work for your benefit. Everyone will be in a more relaxed and positive mood as you speak. You should find it easier to connect with your audience and they should enjoy your speech more.

What All Of This Means For You

As speakers we are always looking for ways to better connect with our audiences. One great way to make this happen is to use the power of introductions to start things off right.

All too often we’ll find ourselves in a situation where we end up having to introduce ourselves. When this happens, we need to be careful to not come across as being too boastful. Instead, share with the audience why you care so much about the topic that you’ll be talking about and they’ll understand that you really know what you are talking about. Likewise, taking the time to allow your audience to introduce themselves before you start to speak can help everyone feel connected.

When we meet new people, we always start the relationship by introducing ourselves. As speakers we need to find ways to use this social skill during our speeches so that we are able to better connect with our audiences and thereby more easily change their lives…

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: If you have to introduce yourself, how long do you think this should take?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Let’s say that you were going to go out and buy a new car. Now lets say that you didn’t get to make any decisions about what that car was going to look like. You don’t get to choose the color, the accessories, or even the type of car. When the car got delivered to you, how would you feel? I’m willing to bet that you’d have almost no connection to that car – it had not been customized for you. What this all means is that if you don’t take the time to customize your speech for your audience, then you’re going to get the same reaction: they aren’t going to feel any sense of connection with you.

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The 2 Most Important Things That A Public Speaker Needs To Do When The Curtain Goes Up

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011
Image Credit The First Words That You Say Are The Most Important…

The First Words That You Say Are The Most Important…

One of the questions that public speakers have been debating since the beginning of time is “what is the most important part of a speech?” There are really only three possibilities: the beginning, the middle, or the end. I’m here to solve this question once and for all: it’s the beginning and I’m going to tell you why…

What Time Should You Start At? (Careful, This Is A Trick Question…)

This might seem like sorta a strange thing to be talking about when what you really want to do is to become a better public speaker, but what time you start to speak at is actually a critical question.

All too often as public speakers, we’ll show up for an event and then we’ll basically put ourselves in the hands of the person who is running the show. We end up saying by our actions “I’ll start to speak when you tell me to start.” This is the wrong thing to do.

As the speaker, you need to drive the organizer to start your speech on time. I fully realize that this can be difficult to do especially if as you look out over the audience there are still a lot of empty chairs. However, things will go badly for you if you don’t start on time.

Just imagine this scenario: you delay your start time by 15 minutes to allow more people to arrive. They all notice that you are starting late. A break comes and you ask them to come back in 10 minutes. They end up trickling back in after 20 minutes. Then lunch comes. You ask them to be back in an hour. Most of them stroll back in about 20 minutes late. You get the point.

The thing that you have to remember is that your audience’s time is very valuable to them. By not starting your speech on time you are showing them that you don’t respect their time. Clearly, they’ll show you that they don’t respect your time either if you do this!

It’s Really All About Your Introduction

Most audiences won’t know anything about you before you take the stage. Interestingly enough, this is the same problem that professional comedians face. They’ve come up with a clever solution to their problem: it’s called the opening act.

The sole purpose of a comedy opening act is to get the audience used to laughing. The opening act doesn’t even have to be all that good, their purpose is to get the audience warmed up and ready for the main course: the headlining comedian.

In the world of public speaking your speaker introduction plays the role of your opening act. It is through your introduction that the audience’s expectations will be built up. Not only should your introduction explain why you are here, but it should also lay out what you’ll be talking about.

As you have probably already guessed, your introduction is too important to be left to chance. Some speakers leave it up to the host of the event to come up with some clever words to say. This is like playing the lottery: sure you might win, but the odds are stacked against you.

Instead what you need to do is to prepare your own introduction. Type it up and make sure that it covers why you are the right one to be at this event talking about this topic. A key point of a successful introduction is to have it lead up to your actual speech so that the transition from the introduction to your speech appears to be very smooth to the audience.

What All Of This Means For You

As speakers we all want each speech to go well. It turns out that we are really in charge of how things turn out. We control how each speech starts. To make your next speech a success, there are two things that you must do.

What we need to do is to set things up so that our speeches always start on time. Doing this communicates to your audience that you respect their time and that they should be sure to return the favor and respect yours. Your speech should start with someone else introducing you. What’s important about this is that the introduction is your opening act – it sets the stage for what you are going to be saying. Therefore, it needs to be done correctly. Never leave your introduction to chance – write it out and provide it to the person who will be introducing you.

How a speech starts sets the tone for everything else that you have to say. Taking the time to make sure that you get off to a good start is the key to ensuring that your next speech is guaranteed to be a success…

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: Do you think that there is any way to get your audience to actually remember what is said in your introduction?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Political speeches, for the most part, are forgettable. Except when they aren’t. If you’ve spent any time listening to the types of speeches that politicians are giving these days, they are basically junk (the Phil Davison, GOP Candidate, Delivers Stark County Treasurer Speech on YouTube is a classic bad political speech). The question is whose fault is this: the speech writers or the speech givers? I’m willing to bet that the art of writing a good political speech has been forgotten by far too many speechwriters. I’m going to solve that problem right now…

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Don’t Toast The Holidays: How Presenters Can Give A Toast Without Toasting A Relationship

Monday, December 14th, 2009
Image Credit A Poorly Given Toast Can Burn A Relationship

A Poorly Given Toast Can Burn A Relationship

Editor’s Note: This article has been selected to be included in Angela DeFinis’ “Public Speaking and the Holidays” Blog Carnival. If you aren’t familiar with blog carnivals, they are a compilation of blog posts from numerous authors on a given topic that are housed on a central blog.

Enjoy this article and be sure to check out the other ones at Angela’s blog.

It’s the holiday season once again, a virtual minefield of social speaking opportunities. I can just see it now: you’re at the office Christmas party, there will probably be some sort of food served, drinks will flow, and then someone will do it – they’ll stand up and give a toast. Oh, oh – now it’s your turn to do the same thing. How are you going to do this without looking like a fool or destroying your relationship with the person(s) of honor (your boss perhaps?)

First off, get rid of any plans that you might have to say something naughty. Rarely this might go over well; however, more often than not it falls flat on its face and so just say “no”. Michael Varma is a professional speaker who has seen his fair share of toasting disasters and he’s got some advice for all of us.

Michael says that when you are giving a toast, you should always start out by introducing yourself – in a crowd of people, there are probably a bunch of folks who don’t know who you are. Also spell out how you are related to the person(s) of honor because this will help to make your toast clearer. Michael suggests that your actual toast have three characteristics: make it brief, make it bold, and then be done with it.

A toast is NOT a speech! Mark Twain probably said it best when he recommended that toasts should never be longer than 1 minute. The longer your toast, the less impact that it will have. The “air time” that you are taking for your toast belongs to everyone and you need to use as little of it as possible.

When you are giving a toast, this is not the time to be shy. You are probably talking to a noisy room in which people may be eating, drinking, and having their own side conversations. You need to speak up! Your goal should be to speak loudly enough that everyone in the room, including the folks in the back, can hear you clearly.

When you are done speaking, shut up and sit down. Yes you’ve just given a performance; however, this event is not all about you so don’t do any bowing or waving. Shut your mouth and sit down so that everyone can once again return their attention to the person(s) of honor.

If you want your toast to be memorable, then the trick is to tell a story. I must once again reemphasize a key point – keep it clean! You shouldn’t tell stories about old girlfriends at a wedding and you shouldn’t tell stories about stealing office supplies at the annual Christmas party. Instead, tell a story that shows the person(s) of honor in a good light. Oh, and keep it to under a minute.

My recommendation is to get a little sappy, a little funny, and hopefully that will be just right for a toast at any holiday gathering.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

What is the best way to become a better public speaker?  The problem with most approaches is that they take time. Too much time. A much better way to quickly improve is to find a professional speaker who is doing it right and ask them how they do it…

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Know Your Audience: What You Don’t Know May Hurt You

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
Speakers Need To Realize Their Audience May Be Different From Them <p>(c) - 2008</p>

Speakers Need To Realize Their Audience May Be Different From Them (c) - 2008

When you think of the perfect speech in your mind, what do you see? Do you see yourself up on a stage giving a speech, reaching the end, and then having everyone stand up and applaud until their hands grow tired? Nice picture. However, all too often that doesn’t happen. There are lots of reasons for this, but one big one is because we don’t take the time to fully know our audience…

Why Bother?

Why give a speech in the first place? There always has to be a reason for us to give a speech – are we there to entertain, inform, motivate, etc. We won’t be able to do this if we don’t connect with our audience. We won’t be able to connect with our audience if we don’t know who they are.

It’s way too easy for a speaker to make assumptions about the audiences that we are talking to. The biggest mistake is to assume that they see the world the way that we do. Craig Harrison points out that by presuming that the audience thinks the way that we do we risk offending them – perhaps without even realizing it.

It Takes A Village To Give A Speech

The right way to go about getting an audience on your side is to tackle three big issues right off the bat in any speech that you are giving:

  • Acknowledge Differences: What makes you different from the majority of your audience? You realize this and your audience realizes it. Deal with it in a way that shows respect. If you are an older speaker talking to a much younger audience you could start out by saying “I realize that you are out there looking at me and thinking to yourself that I may be old enough to be your parent; however, don’t worry – I won’t be telling you that you should visit your mother more, that you really should be getting more sleep, or asking when you’ll finally be getting married. Instead, how about if we talk about…“
  • Include Everyone: Not only are you an outsider to your audience, there is a good chance that a lot of people in your audience are outsiders to the rest of the audience. Use the opening of your speech to unite everyone together at least on a single issue. An example might be “I realize that we all live in different neighborhoods, go to different schools, and attend different churches, but the proposed change in how property taxes are calculated will affect us all and that’s what I’d like to talk to you about tonight.“
  • Mind Your Reputation: Before you even open your mouth, the audience has pre-judged you. It might be based on the information that was used to advertise the event or perhaps you are known for some past deed. Dealing with this right off the bat will allow your audience to get by it and start to listen to what you have to say. One way to do this would be “I come from the sunny state of Florida where you might think that just about everyone is retired and just living off of Medicare. However, there are a few of us who are still working and we care just as much, if not more, about the current debate over healthcare reform…“

Final Thoughts

Giving a speech is a tough job. Giving a good speech is even tougher. You need to have your audience working with you, not against you if you want to have any hope of making an impact. The first step in accomplishing this is realizing that your audience is different from you.

Once you acknowledge this, then you need to work to include them and dispel any preconceived ideas that they may have about you. Learn to do this well and you’ll be able to intimately connect with your audience and make an lasting impact in their lives.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Have you ever heard the expression “one size fits all“? Something that too many public speakers don’t realize is that you need to create different speeches for different size audiences. There is no such thing as the one-size-fits-all speech.

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