Posts Tagged ‘presentation skills’

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The Secret To Becoming An Expert In Anything

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Audiences Seek Speakers Who Are Experts To Teach Them

Audiences Seek Speakers Who Are Experts To Teach Them

If you forget all of the advice that you’ve ever been given about speaking, then please at least remember this: audiences come to hear experts speak. No matter how badly you stutter, lose your place, don’t make eye contact, etc. an audience will always forgive a presenter whom they believe is an expert in what he/she is talking about.

What Is An Expert?

Great I hear you saying, but just what is an expert? It turns out that this is a pretty simple question to answer: an expert is someone who knows more about a topic than the audience does. It really is that simple.

It’s not easy to become an expert; however, it is possible. The key to success is to transform yourself into a non-stop learning machine that is never satisfied with what you already know.

How Can You Become An Expert?

Shawn Doyle is a speaker who has looked into the whole “become an expert” thing and he’s found the secret. He says that the key is to get motivated and stay motivated.

Perhaps you thought that learning stopped when you got out of school? Sadly some people do; however, with any luck they are out there sitting in your audience. It’s really not that hard to acquire additional knowledge if you know the secret of how to do it. At the heart of knowledge is books and it turns out that, just like your mom told you all those years ago, the more you read, the smarter you’ll be.

Are you groaning yet? Complaining that you read magazines (while you are standing in line waiting to check out at the supermarket) but you haven’t read a book in years? It turns out that the time that you spent in school was just a brief part of your overall life (hopefully) and continuing to learn is something that you need to keep doing for your entire life if you want people to show up and listen to you.

Steps To Becoming An Expert

Another name for an expert is “learner“. If you want to find a way to work learning into your already busy schedule, then you are going to have find out how to find the knowledge that you need in order to wow your audiences. The good news is that I’m going to tell you how to do this.

Learners read books. They might also watch TV, they might surf the web, they might do a lot of things, but most importantly they read books. Not only do they read books, they have a plan for what books they are going to read. They create a monthly list of the books that they are going to read. They add books to their list by asking other people that they know and respect what books they are reading.

If you are going to become a learner in order to become an expert, then you are going to have to start doing more reading than you are doing today. Here are some suggestions for how you can make this happen:

  • Create A Reading Budget - you create a budget for everything else in your life, why not reading? By doing this you’ll know how much you have to spend (and when you have it to spend) when you are surfing the Amazon.com and BN.com book web sites.
  • Get A Library Card - remember the library from your childhood? Good news – it’s still there. No matter where you live, no matter how big or how small your local library is, almost all libraries have some sort of inter-library loan program that can provide you with access to just about any book that you might want. Check it out!
  • Become A Sale Shopper – you don’t have to buy the newest books immediately when they come out. Look for the slow seasons and stock up then. Right after Christmas most books stores have great sales so that they can get rid of the extra stock that they bought for the holiday season.
  • Befriend Local Used Books Stores – when I lived in Dallas there was a bookstore called Books-A-Million that was huge and always seemed to have a book in the area that I was looking for. If you don’t have a local used books store then you can always make use of half.com which is Ebay’s used book store.

Other Ways To Become An Expert

With all that being said, reading books isn’t the ONLY way to become an expert in your selected area (although it is the best way). You can always supplement your reading by doing additional things like:

  • Searching The Internet – however, you need to remember that you can’t always trust what you find on the Internet. Verify, verify, verify.
  • Ask Questions Of Smart People – seek out people who know more about something than you do and take them out to lunch. Ask them questions and then pay attention to what they have to say.
  • Read The Newspaper – yeah, just like your parents used to do. You just might be amazed at what you find out is going on around you.
  • Watch DVDs – no, not Hollywood films, but rather instructional ones that will teach you something.
  • Attend Seminars – since you are trying to become an expert, take the time to go see other experts and learn from them – how did they get their knowledge and how do they use it.

Final Thoughts

One characteristic of an expert that many speakers never realize is that they are always growing, always changing. One self-help book that I read awhile back had a great way of putting it. The author suggested that we should plan on reinventing ourselves every year – sorta a you 1.0, followed by a you 2.0.

By doing this you will always have fresh and interesting things to tell your audiences about and they will always be interested in hearing what you have to say.

Make the effort to become an expert and you’ll be able to intimately connect with your audience and make an lasting impact in their lives.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

The purpose of giving any speech is to be able to reach out and connect with your audience. No matter whether you are trying to inform them, entertain them, or convince them to take some action, none of this can be done unless you are able to make a connection with them. What you say is an important part of doing this, but did you know that what you wear also plays a role?

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Posted in learning | 3 Comments »

Ambush: When Experienced Speakers Develop New Public Speaking Fears

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

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Experienced Speakers Can Have Phobias Too

Even the most accomplished public speakers can develop a sudden phobia about speaking in public. In order to get over this phobia, you need to recognize what kind it is and how to deal with it.

These phobias can show up out of the blue and you’ll never see them coming. Judith Pearson is an experienced counselor who has seen this happen time after time and she’s got some suggestions on what to do if / when this happens to you.

What is a Public Speaking Phobia?

One of the big problems that public speakers have with phobias is simply recognizing them for what they are. It turns out that a sudden fear of public speaking can hit an accomplished speaker at any time. If you find yourself with an irrational fear of speaking to a group, then you’ve got a phobia.

Pearson says that public speaking phobias can be broken down into one of three main categories:

  • It’s all about me
  • Past disasters
  • Fear of making mistakes in front of an audience

The “It’s All About Me” Phobia

In my opinion, this is the most common phobia that can hit an experienced speaker. If you develop this phobia, then all of a sudden you’ll find yourself feeling highly self-conscious when you think about speaking in public. The more you think about giving a speech, the more you’ll feel as though the audience that you’ll be talking to will be sitting there disapproving of every word that is coming out of your mouth.

The solution to dealing with this phobia is to sit down and have a talk with yourself. You’ll need to realize that ultimately it’s really NOT all about you. In reality, it’s the audience that matters – not you. They have come to hear you speak in order to learn – in all honesty it really doesn’t matter that you will be the one talking to them.

The “Past Disaster” Phobia

I think that we’ve all been here before: this phobia is created by some sort of traumatic event that has occurred in your past that had an accompanying highly-charged negative emotion. A great example of this would be if something went wrong with a speech and then the event organizer yelled at you about it afterwards.

Once again, the right way to deal with this phobia is to sit down and have a talk with yourself. You need to find a way to make yourself understand that what has happened has happened in the past. You need to realize that it can never happen again and you need to move forward. Acknowledge what happened and convince yourself that you’ll do better in the future.

The “Fear Of Making Mistakes” Phobia

If you have to have a phobia, then this is probably the one that you’ll want to have. The reason is that the fear of making mistakes is really the other side of the desire to do a great job at something. The phobia stops you in your tracks or makes it hard to get started because you just don’t think that you can do a good enough job at some speaking task.

This is the one phobia that you can actually muscle your way though. Ultimately the solution is to practice, practice, and practice. You need to get yourself to a point where you can realize that you are always going to make mistakes (we’re all human after all). However, you need to be able to observe your mistakes when you make them, make corrections, and then continue on.

Final Thoughts

Phobias are not just for beginning speakers – they can hit any of us at anytime. The key to dealing with a public speaking phobia is to realize what it is – a irrational fear.

Dealing with the three most common forms of public speaking phobias requires you to sit down and think through your fears in order to put them in context. This is the best way for dealing with them. Learn to do this well and you’ll be able to intimately connect with your audience and make an lasting impact in their lives.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

If you forget all of the advice that you’ve ever been given about speaking, then please at least remember this: audiences come to hear experts speak. No matter how badly you stutter, lose your place, don’t make eye contact, etc. an audience will always forgive a presenter whom they believe is an expert in what he/she is talking about.

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Posted in fear | 6 Comments »

Size Matters – Shaping Your Speech To Match Your Audience

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Speakers Need To Tailor Their Speeches To The Size Of Their Audience

Speakers Need To Tailor Their Speeches To The Size Of Their Audience

Have you ever heard the expression “one size fits all“? I’m not sure what this phrase was invented to describe, but I can tell you that it sure wasn’t public speaking. 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.

Types Of Audiences

One of the first questions that has to be answered is just how many different size audiences are there out there? Cliff Suttle has taken a look at this and he believes that there are four different common audience sizes:

  • Conversation Size: an audience of up to 10 people.
  • Speech Size: an audience of 10-40 people.
  • Performance Size: an audience of 40-100 people.
  • Show Size: an audience of 100 or more people

The reason that the size of your audience matters is because you need to tune your speech to meet the needs of that size audience. Just as a clown at a birthday party does different things to entertain its audience from what a comedian at a nightclub does, so to does a public speaker need to make changes to suit the size of his/her audience.

How To Match Your Speech To Your Audience’s Size

Once you know how large of an audience you’ll be talking to, you can adjust your speech to best match the needs of that audience. You’ll have to take a different approach for each type of audience:

  • Conversation Size: the key to satisfying this type of audience is to NOT deliver a formal speech. Instead what you want do is to have an intimate conversation with them. You’ll need to be able to be flexible in order to adjust your speech to meet the changing moods of your audience.
  • Speech Size: the audience size is still small enough that you are going to be able to use a conversational tone, but you are going to have prepare and deliver a formal speech. Eye contact becomes very important and you need to make hand gestures in order to include everyone in you speech.
  • Performance Size: for this type of speech, taking the time to memorize your speech can be a big help because it will free you up to focus on HOW you say it. You are going to have to speed up the eye contact and not spend too much time looking at any one person. If you make your audience laugh, be sure to give the entire audience time to laugh before you start speaking again.
  • Show Size: One of the most important points about speaking to a large audience has nothing to do with your words – it’s all about self-confidence. Being confidant and taking and owning the stage are critical parts of winning a large audience over to your side. There will no longer be an opportunity to make eye contact with individuals in the audience, instead you’ll have to look at sections of the audience in such a way that they all feel as though you are looking at them individually. Your use of vocal variety becomes critical to keeping your audience engaged in your speech.

Final Thoughts

All too often when we are asked to give a speech we will spend all of our time thinking about the speech and not spend any time thinking about the audience. All audiences are not created the same. We need to tailor our speeches to meet the needs of the size audience that we are addressing.

When preparing a speech always plan for the big show. Then spend some extra time scaling it down to match your audience. This way you’ll have a back up plan if more people happen to show up.

Learn to do this well and you’ll be able to intimately connect with your audience and make an lasting impact in their lives.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Even the most accomplished public speakers can develop a sudden phobia about speaking in public. In order to get over this phobia, you need to recognize what kind it is and how to deal with it…

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Posted in audience | 9 Comments »

Persuasion Power – How To Win Over An Audience

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
Speakers Who Can Persuade An Audience Are Powerful Indeed <br> (C) - Jason Cross

Speakers Who Can Persuade An Audience Are Powerful Indeed (C) - Jason Cross

Not all speeches are the same. Graduations, weddings, corporate pep-rally’s – those are all pretty straightforward. One of the most difficult types of speeches to give is one in which you have been brought in to convince an audience of something. As difficult as this type of speech is to give, if you can become good at doing it, you will seen as being a very valuable speaker indeed!

Persuasion Starts With Small Steps

You can assume that the audience that you’ll be speaking to will be be made up of a mix of people who already support your position, who have not make up their minds yet, and who are dead set against whatever you are going to say. Good luck with that presenter!

Clearly the first step in winning any audience over is for you to do your homework BEFORE you are facing the audience. One key area to research is to find out what arguments “the other side” has made. If there is a person or a group that represents “the other side”, then this is pretty straightforward. If there is not a clear “other side”, then you’re going to have to spend some time researching the flip side of what you want to persuade your audience about – because some people will have decided that that is what they want to believe.

One sure-fire way to start to win your audience over to your way of thinking is by using something called strategic agreement. When you do this  you agree with parts of the other side’s position. Automatically this will start to make the audience view you as a reasonable person. They may not completely agree with you, but they will start to warm to your view point.

Show Up Ready For A Fight

Well, maybe that’s putting it just a little bit too harshly. How about if we say that you need to show up ready to address your audience’s objections. Whatever you have been asked to convince them about, there will be objections to it. Before you give your speech, you need to once again do your homework. In your speech you need to make sure that you address these each of these objections.

Sometimes we like to shy away from sticky arguments that we don’t feel that we have a good response to. However, you must be careful to not do this. It turns out that if you don’t address an objection, then your audience will assume that it is a valid objection because you didn’t talk about it.

This Is A No Dumping Zone

I am probably more guilty of dumping than anyone else that I know. When I’m giving a persuasive speech, I want to make sure that I get my point across. This means that I’ll do a lot of research and, if I’m not careful, I’ll “dump” all of that research on my audience during my presentation. This is a bad idea.

Instead, you want to do the research, pick out the points that are going to be the most important to your audience, and then cover just these few points in detail.

What It Takes To Make A Good Argument

You would think that we’d all know this by now, but when I’m coaching speakers I keep discovering that they know WHAT they want to say to make their point, but they don’t know HOW to say it. It turns out that there is a simple formula that allows you to create a complete argument in order to support your position:

  • First: Make An Assertion – you’ve got to tell your audience what point you are going to be trying to convince them about. Without this, they’ll never know what you are talking about.
  • Next: Tell Them Why – this is where you need to explain to your audience why YOU think that your position is correct. This is the meat of your point and you really need to come across as convincing.
  • Finally: Show Proof - the fact that you believe something is great, but not enough. You need to wrap up your point by sharing evidence with your audience that will back up your position.

Final Thoughts

There is no doubt about it – winning people over to your way of thinking is just about the hardest type of speech to give. Ask any politician. However, it can be done. What it requires is that you do a lot of homework in order to prepare your arguments with an understanding of the facts and what your audience is currently thinking.

Public speaking is never an easy thing to do. Developing the skills that are needed in order to rally a crowd behind a new idea, a change in policy, or bold new idea is time well spent for a speaker. If you can do this, then you’ll have a powerful new speaking tool and you’ll be able to intimately connect with your audience and make an lasting impact in their lives.

Questions For You

Have you ever had to give a speech where you had to persuade the audience? Did you do enough homework to prepare for the speech? Did you find out what the audience was thinking before you gave your speech? How did it turn out? 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

If you are going to go to the effort of creating and delivering a speech, doesn’t it make sense that you’d want to be able to reach your audience and somehow appeal to them? No matter if you are trying to persuade them or educate them, ultimately the goal is find a way to successfully appeal to them. Good news – how to do this has been known for the past 2,500 years!

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Posted in persuasion | 1 Comment »

Persuade An Audience Using 3 Secrets Used By Presenters

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Persuading Your Audience Requires More Planning Than Yelling At Them

Persuading Your Audience Requires More Planning Than Yelling At Them

If you think about it, there are a lot of different types of speeches that we can give: humorous, informative, motivational, and of course, ones that are designed to get your audience to start thinking a particular way. Oh yeah, this last type just may be the hardest type of speech to give…

Where Do You Start When You Want To Persuade?

At it’s very heart, persuasion is the art of getting your audience to see the world the same way that you do. As all of us speakers know, no matter if you are talking to a graduation or a business gathering, an audience is not a single entity – it’s a lot of different people sitting out there who all have different opinions on any given topic. Your job as a speaker is to win over as many of them to your side as possible.

Pick Your Problem

John Coleman is an author and a former U.S. national speech champion who knows a thing or two about how to build a speech that can persuade. Coleman points out that before you can have any hope of persuading an audience, both of you need to agree that there is a problem in the first place.

As obvious as this may seem, you could talk until you are blue in the face and it would all be for naught if your audience didn’t agree with you that there is a problem. In order to get your audience to agree that there is a problem that needs to be solved, you need to do three things:

  • Isolate it & limit its scope
  • Make it urgent
  • Make it significant

You Got To Keep ‘Em Isolated

Have you ever heard that phrase “You can’t boil the ocean”? When it comes to persuading an audience it applies – you need to make sure that you pick a problem that you can actually do something about. Scope down a bigger problem (“world hunger”) to something that your audience can do something about (“hunger in our town”).

Run!

Well, don’t run but you do want to convince your audience that they need to take action. Just talking about a problem isn’t enough to cause your audience to actually agree to DO anything. Somehow you are going to have to lite a fire underneath them so that they will end up taking some action (that’s why it’s called “persuasion”!).

It’s Only A Problem If It’s Significant

Assuming that you’ve been able to convince your audience that there is a problem, your next step is to make sure that you bring it home – you’ve got to relate the problem to their lives. This is going to require that you have an understanding of who your audience is so that you can describe to them how this problem is going to affect them in terms that will motivate them to take action.

Final Thoughts

Speeches that persuade are not easy speeches to give. However, as with so many things in life – it’s the ability to do the hard things that make us more valuable. If you take the time to understand how to prepare to give an effective persuasive speech, then you’ll have a powerful new speaking tool and you’ll be able to intimately connect with your audience and make an lasting impact in their lives.

Questions For You

Have you ever had to give a persuasive speech? Was the problem too big, too small, or just the right size? How did you convey that the problem was urgent? Did your audience come away believing that the problem related to their lives? 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

Not all speeches are the same. Graduations, weddings, corporate pep-rally’s – those are all pretty straightforward. One of the most difficult types of speeches to give is one in which you have been brought in to convince an audience of something. As difficult as this type of speech is to give, if you can become good at doing it, you will seen as being a very valuable speaker indeed!

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Posted in persuasion | 3 Comments »

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