Posts Tagged ‘introduction’

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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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Posted in toasts | 4 Comments »

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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Posted in differences | 2 Comments »

Bragging Is What Presenters Need To Be Able To Do Well

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Presenters Need To Learn How To Use Bragging To Establish Their Creditability

Presenters Need To Learn How To Use Bragging To Establish Their Creditability

Just in case you’ve forgotten it, the #1 question on the minds of any audience that is seated and waiting for you to begin talking to them is “Why should I even bother listening to you?“. This means that in order for you to have any hope of making an impact on this  audience, you’re going to have to answer this question right off the bat. But how?

The Art Of The Brag

I’m afraid that we’re going to have to talk about the “C” word – “credibility“. As a presenter, it’s your job to establish your credibility in the minds of your audience. This is where bragging comes in.

John Spaith has spent some time thinking about how to do this correctly and he’s got some good suggestions. Spaith points out that you always have competition when you give a presentation. This doesn’t mean that you have to deal with other speakers (although sometimes you do), but rather your audience has a lot of other things on their mind and if you don’t grab their attention and hold it by establishing your credibility, then they won’t pay attention to what you have to say.

A Plan For Self-Promotion (Bragging)

The best way to establish credibility with your audience is to have the person who is introducing you do it for you. However, for a variety of reasons this may not always be possible. When you find yourself in situations like this, you need to do your bragging yourself. Here’s what Spaith suggests that we think about:

  • Make It Relevant: If you are addressing a sales team, then spending time talking about the amazing singing career you had in the past won’t buy you any credibility. Instead, make your bragging relevant – tell them that you survived a trip down the Amazon and that you’ve been shot four times. Survival bragging would work well with this group.
  • It’s All Relative: The accomplishments or talents that you are bragging about have to be something that your audience can relate to. Telling everyone that you are an award winning professional ballroom dancer is great, but who can relate to that? If you tell everyone that you spent 10,000 hours on your feet in uncomfortable shoes practicing to become an award winning professional ballroom dancer, now that’s something that we can relate to.

How To Brag

Once you’ve established WHAT you’ll be bragging about, you need to nail down just HOW you’re going to go about doing it. First off, you need to get your bragging done at the start of your presentation – credibility is something that you need right off the bat. Next, you need to keep it long enough to build that credibility, but not too long. I’m going to say that a minute should be long enough and you might want to keep it even shorter.

You are going to want to write out and memorize your bragging words. It is so important to get these words just right – not too boastful, but at the same time not too self-deprecating.

Final Thoughts

Some of you might be a bit shy about bragging about yourself – get over it. You owe it to your audience to deliver the best presentation that you can and taking the time and effort to make sure that your message sinks in is part of this. Using carefully designed bragging to establish your “street cred” is an important part of any presentation that you give.

Questions For You

When you give a presentation, do you include bragging about yourself? Have you ever “gone over the top” and done too much bragging? Have you ever done too little bragging and not gotten the audience’s respect? Have you ever seen an introduction that established just the right amount of credibility for the speaker? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.

What We’ll To Be Talking About Next Time

When we are given an opportunity to address a group, we spend a great deal of time preparing what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. This is all well and good, but we may be forgetting one critical factor: our audience may not be able to hear us speak…

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Posted in introduction | 2 Comments »

Dennis Quaid Gives A Keynote Speech – Real Life Speeches

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Dennis Quaid Gave A Keynote Speech That Missed The Mark

Dennis Quaid Gave A Keynote Speech That Missed The Mark

I just got back from spending the better part of a week up in Chicago at a big health care conference (HIMSS09). This was an amazing opportunity for me to sit back and watch somewhere in the neighborhood of about 100 different presenters get up and do their very best job at communicating. One of these presenters was Dennis Quaid – the actor.

What was Dennis Quaid doing at a fairly boring health care IT conference you ask? Well it turns out that he has a heck of a story to tell about how his newborn children were given the wrong medicine. Everyone attending the conference knew about the story, and so roughly 15,000 – 20,000 folks showed up to hear Dennis give his speech.

So how did it go? Well, in all honesty, not that well. I mean, it was ok – but not what everyone was really hoping for. Generally when you show up for a keynote speech, you are expecting a great speech. When the speaker is a famous actor, your expectations are that much higher. Things didn’t start as well as you would have hoped that they would have.

Dennis was introduced by a slick video that reminded the audience of all of the movies that he has been in. He then came out and took control of the podium. This is where things started to fall apart. His first few statements dealt with how he’s not really a doctor and how he really has never played a role in the health care industry. These are all true things, but what a lousy way to start a speech to folks who ARE in the health care industry!

Add to this a great deal of hemming and hawing, playing with his hands, and just all around nervousness and you end up with a speaker who is distracting his audience away from what is a very powerful message. So what was going on here?

I’ll never know the exact answer, but here are a few guesses. Dennis Quaid is an actor. He sure seems to do a great job of performing for a camera – in front a film crew of about 40 people or so. Put him in front of 20,000 folks sitting in chairs in a massive convention hall and he may feel the same way that any one of us would feel – incredibly nervous.

One other contributing factor may have been that the story that he was there to tell was a VERY personal story. It’s entirely possible that each time he tells it, the emotions that the story stirs up in him causes him to fall apart.

No matter what the cause, the effect was the same – a less than expected speech. Us mere mortals can learn much from Dennis Quaid’s challenges. First, practice, practice, practice – no matter how good you think you are, everyone is going to be able to tell if you try to “wing it”. Secondly, practice in front of people that you know – their feedback can tell you things that you can’t see yourself.

Questions For You

Have you ever seen a famous person give a speech? How did they do? What do you think that they could have done better? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Just in case you’ve forgotten it, the #1 question on the minds of any audience that is seated and waiting for you to begin talking to them is “Why should I even bother listening to you?“. This means that in order for you to have any hope of making an impact on this  audience, you’re going to have to answer this question right off the bat. But how…?

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Posted in keynote | 6 Comments »

Real Life Speeches: Alan Greenspan Gives A Keynote

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Alan Greenspan Gave A Keynote Speech At The HIMSS Conference

Alan Greenspan Gave A Keynote Speech At The HIMSS Conference

Even if you don’t work in the world of high-finance, you surely know who Alan Greenspan is. He was the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. There’s no question that this guy is smart, but can he deliver a good keynote speech?

Where It Happened

While attending the recent HIMSS health care show up in Chicago, I had an opportunity to watch Greenspan in action as he gave a keynote speech. Now you have to understand that he was speaking on the third day of a 3-day conference and generally the crowds would have thinned out by now, but that wasn’t the case. The hall in which he gave his speech had a seating capacity of between 15,000 – 20,000 and it was pretty much full.

What caught my interest was that people were not showing up because they thought that Greenspan was a good speaker. No, they were showing up because they wanted to hear the information that they thought that he would be communicating: how did the current recession come about and when will it end?

The Introduction

The lead up to Greenspan’s keynote speech was a spectacular Hollywood introduction. Lights flashed, the speakers boomed with an announcer’s voice, and a brief film played that showed all of Greenspan’s many accomplishments. This was followed up by the Chairman of the HIMSS organization coming on stage and reading a prepared introduction for Greenspan. What speaker could ask for a better intro?

The Speech

So I know that the question that you are dying to have answered is “how did he do?”. The answer is that Alan Greenspan is not a very good keynote speaker; however, the audience hung on his every word. Perhaps some explination is needed here:

  • Technical Knowledge: Greenspan knows his stuff. He was there to explain how the U.S. economy works and the introduction plus the words that came out of his mouth confirmed that he really knows his stuff.
  • Hands: Greenspan’s #1 problem with public speaking is that he, just like so many other speakers, has no idea what to do with his hands. During his keynote speech his hands spent the time traveling from his pants pockets to being clasped and back again. It was a big room and only his face was displayed on the jumbo-tron screens, but it was distracting none the less.
  • Technical Content: I’m not sure what the rest of the audience was expecting, but I was anticipating a watered-down speech on basic economics. I was flat out wrong. Greenspan held no punches back and used very technical economic terms in his speech about how the world’s economy operates.
  • Pacing: The stage that Greenspan was giving his keynote speech on was HUGE. He was equipped with a wireless mic and so he could go anywhere. Unfortunately, he did. He paced back and forth and moved from side to side. Now there is no problem doing this if it supports your speech, but there was no clear linkage between his movements and his speech.
  • Using Notes: The first 25% of Greenspan’s keynote was delivered pretty much how you would expect a keynote to be delivered – he had some notes that he referred to occasionally, but the rest of the time he looked at the audience and spoke. However, just a little bit of the way into his speech, something strange happened – he picked up his notes and started reading from them word-for-word. The impact of his speech went way down when it felt like he was reading a book to us.

What Was Learned From All Of This

I had been very excited to listen to Greenspan speak – he is basically a rock-star in the world of finance. I came away from his keynote speech feeling just a little bit let down. On one hand, I was amazed at just how powerful a reputation can be in drawing people to come to a speech just to hear what the speaker has to say. Substance over style so to speak.

On the other hand, the reading word-for-word from notes really disappointed me. Then an interesting thing happened, I think that I figured out why he did it. Greenspan seemed to be a perfectly competent speaker. I don’t think that he NEEDED to read his speech from his notes. However, I now think that he is such an important person that the words that come out of his mouth can still move markets.

This means that, just like the President of the Unites States, he has to be very careful about what he says (and how he says it). If he had said that “… the recession is going to last for another 5 years…” then the stock market would have plunged the next day. Perhaps reading his speech was a way to protect us all from words that are too powerful…!

Questions For You

Have you ever attended a speech because you really wanted to know more about what was going to be talked about? Did you attend because you knew that the speaker was good or despite who the speaker was? How did it turn out – did you get what you wanted? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

One question that I keep getting asked over and over by speakers that I am working with is if storytelling is such a powerful communication tool, then why isn’t it used more in business settings? It’s a good question, but the answer is a little bit complicated…

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Posted in keynote | 2 Comments »

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