We can spend all the time in the world talking about how to prepare better presentations, capture and hold your audience’s attention, create great PowerPoint slides, etc. and it will all be for naught if we forget to talk about one very important thing: your voice. I don’t know about you guys, but I really don’t spend very much time thinking about my voice - until it’s not there!

So if everything is going along fine, then you don’t really need to worry about your voice. However, if you have a big presentation coming up, that’s when things can start to get bad in a hurry. You pick the cause: weather changes, allergies, a cold or flu, no matter the cause - the results are always the same. If there is something wrong with your voice, then that’s what your audience is going to be focusing on - not what you are saying!

We all have ways of dealing with sore body parts that we can get to like an arm or a leg. How does one go about taking care of a voice that is located “in there” somewhere? It turns out that it really comes down to a list of things that you SHOULD be doing as well as another list of things that you SHOULD NOT be doing. Let’s take a look…

Fluids, fluids, fluids. In the end, having a healthy / happy voice requires that you keep your vocal cords supple. Ways to do this include drinking fluids such as sports drinks which replenish sugars, sodium and lots of other nutrients.

Of course, there is a flip side to this - you need to stop drinking some things. You can say goodbye to coffee as your presentation date / time grows nearer. Oh, the same thing goes for alcohol in any form. The reason that you have to avoid these fluids is because they act as a drying agent and that’s the last thing that your vocal cords need.

How do you start your day? I personally enjoy having a glass of orange juice. However, it turns out that orange juice has the potential to irritate your throat. Dang! The OJ has to go on presentation day.

If you start to come down with something as your big presentation day approaches, there are some defensive activities that you can start to do. Adding a humidifier to your bedroom will help to lubricate your throat while you are sleeping. Additionally, you can spend some time in a steamy shower in order to sooth your entire respiratory system.

Once you get your fluids taken care of, you need to make sure that you don’t screw things up now. This means that you need to avoid clearing your throat because this will end up irritating your vocal cords.

If you feel yourself starting to become hoarse there are a couple of things that you can do. Try to gargle with warm salt water a few times during the day. Additionally, you should start to drink herbal tea with honey in order to fight back the hoarseness.

Be very careful about doing what we all normally do: popping a throat lozenges that contains menthol or some other anesthetics. The reason that these are so bad for you is that they numb your throat and this will hide your body’s warning signs that it’s time to stop using your voice.

One final recommendation: during your actual presentation you should do your best to keep your tone at a conversational volume level. By doing this you will be able to avoid overexerting your vocal cords.

Have you ever been in danger of losing your voice just before you were to give a big presentation? What did you do to save your voice? Did it work? How did you sound when you gave the presentation? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: health, presentation, presentations, presenter, public speaking, speaker, voice

Creating A Keynote For A Graduation Dinner Required Careful Planning

Tis the season for college graduations and I was recently asked to deliver a keynote speech as part of an engineering graduation ceremony. The interesting thing about this speaking opportunity was that I was basically starting from ground zero - I didn’t have an engineering keynote speech in my bag of tricks. This meant that I needed to build one from the floor up quickly - they asked me just a week before the big day.

As I was pulling together my keynote, it dawned on me that lots of presenters often find themselves in a similar situation and may not know how to go about creating a keynote speech that will fit the occasion. In an effort to fill this knowledge gap, I’m going to share with you the steps that I went though to build my keynote speech and, because I delivered it last night, I can also give you some feedback on what worked and what didn’t.

1. Always Start With Your Audience: I followed this rule! I realized that I was going to be talking to a group of graduating engineering students, some of their parents, their professors, and various other people (dates, administrators, etc.). This gave me a fairly homogeneous group and that meant that I needed to work “engineering” content into my speech so that they would feel as though I was talking directly to them.
2. Start At The End: What’s the purpose of a keynote? You probably aren’t going to change any lives so you had better make sure that you don’t try to. In my case, I decided that I had two goals: to entertain and to provide motivation for the graduates to succeed as they moved forward (”We know that you can do it”).
3. Content Is King: So what to say? Since I knew that I was not going to be changing any lives with my speech, I decided to focus on two things: funny stories that have happened to me during my career and a discussion about what things the graduates needed to be aware of in order to have a great career. I mixed in several references to paying off student loans (everyone has those), homework (all engineers have too much of that), and dealing with professors. These were common elements that everyone could relate to.
4. Watch The Clock!: Early on I asked how much time I had for my keynote. I was told that 20 minutes would be perfect. It turned out that this was very important - I shaped my entire speech to fit in this time. It is instant death to the speaker who goes on too long especially in an after-dinner speaking situation like this was. People speak at about 150 words/minute and since I was going to be speaking for 20 minutes I knew that I had to limit myself to about 3,000 words which meant that I needed to…
5. Write It Out!: There is some controversy to this point, but here goes it anyway: I wrote my speech out from start to finish. There were two reasons that I did this. The first was to make sure that I could fit my speech into the 20 minute window - my written speech needed to be no more than 3,000 words long. The next was because I could remember reading somewhere that if you want to deliver a memorable speech, then you need to get your wording just perfect (”I have a nice thought” vs. “I have a dream”). In order to do this you need to write the speech out word for word. So I did it. Then I proceeded to revise it 1,000,000 times.
6. Memorize It!: So if you are never supposed to write out your speech, then of course you should never memorize it! However, that is basically exactly what I ended up doing. I practiced my speech over and over reading it as it was written. After about 5 times of doing this, I was able to spend more time looking at my (pretend) audience than looking at my written speech. Did I ever completely memorize my speech, no. I did get it stuck in my brain well enough so that I really only used my written out speech as an occasional reminder. This mean that I spent most of the speech making eye contact with my audience.
7. Use BIG Print: For the version of my written out speech that I had before me when I was delivering the speech, I made some changes to the written out speech. I increased the font size to a nice, easy to read 16 point Arial. I then turned every sentence into its own bullet point. Needless to say this resulted in a longer printed speech - it was 13 pages long in its final form! Oh, make sure that you put PAGE NUMBERS on each page of your printed speech - you just know that you’ll drop the whole thing as you walk to the podium!
8. A Highlighter Is Your Friend: As I read over my 13 pages of bulleted sentences, I found it difficult to keep my place. I ended up using a highlighter to highlight the one or two words in each sentence that were the key idea. This allowed my eyes to dance from highlighted word to highlighted word and that helped me to keep my place better.
9. PowerPoint Can Be Your Friend: I’m really good looking, but 20 minutes is a long time for an audience to spend staring at me. Since PowerPoint slides were already being used as a part of the graduation dinner, I decided to create some to use as part of my keynote. I ended up creating just 10 slides and none of them contained any words - each just contained a single photo. As I delivered my speech, I had written out [man with truck slide] and so I knew when to move to the next slide. Each slide reflected what I was talking about at the time in my speech so the two media, spoken word and displayed image, helped each other. Oh, and I have a Kensington wireless remote control device that I used to automatically advance to the next slide - much smoother than having to run over and hit the space bar (or say “next!”)
10. Have A Good Ending: Ultimately, this is what will stick in everyone’s memory. I took some extra time and carefully worded my last few sentences so that everyone would feel a warm glow of congratulations for the graduates and they would feel as though they had been recognized for their achievements.

So how did it all turn out? I’d give myself a score of 90/100. The PowerPoint pictures that I used were very well received (here is one with a guy and a truck so you can see what they were laughing at) and so I probably should have used more of them. I explained how Milton Bradly’s “The Game of Life” had good lessons for all of us and that went over fairly flat (not enough laughs). I would make changes if I ever gave this speech again, but I received lots of compliments. Making a speech to engineers interesting AND funny is no simple task!

Have you ever been asked to give a keynote speech? How did you go about creating your content? Did you write your speech out or just speak from notes? Did you use any visuals? How did your speech turn out? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: audience, communication skills, keynote, PowerPoint, presentation, presenter, speaker, speech, speech topics, speech writing

Becoming A Professional Speaker Requires A Great Speech And Business Skills

Not everyone dreams of becoming a paid presenter; however, as we labor over a speech we have all had that thought that started something like “I am NOT being paid enough for all that I do”. Considering how many people are terrified of public speaking, if you can do it and do it well, why not give some thought to “turning pro”?

One note of caution before we start this discussion: it’s been said that in the world of professional speakers, 1% of the speakers make 99% of the money. What that really means is that it’s not just enough to be able to speak in public, but rather you also need to have good business sense.

Jane Atkinson has spent two decades working in the professional speaking business and she knows a thing or two about what it takes to be successful as a pro. Here’s are a few suggestions that she has for those who are considering trying to make some cash from this speaking thing:

• Where Will The Money Come From? If you want to speak professionally, you are going to need to get paid. The key here is to find out who will be willing to pay you for your speech. You need to have unique information or a unique style that is going to help someone solve a problem. Once you know what problem you can solve, you need to find out who has that problem.
• Move From Free To Fee: Everyone would like to get paid for every speech that they give from day 1, but life doesn’t work that way. Instead, what you need to do is to start your professional speaking career by giving free speeches and then the paid gigs will follow.
• I.T.S.S.: It’s the speech, stupid! At the end of the day, it’s your speech that people will be paying to hear. It’s got to be the very best speech that you can give. What this means is that you’ve got to create the speech and then refine, refine, and refine it again.
• Well, Aren’t You Special: If you expect people to pay to hear you speak, then you had better come up with a bio that paints you as being a special person. Your bio should clearly state why anyone would want to hire you.
• Learn From The Pros: If you want to be a professional speaker, then you need to start spending time hanging out with other professional speakers. You will learn the most from those who are currently making a living speaking professionally.
• Mind Your Business: Although the speaking part is what people are buying, it’s really a small business that you are running. This means that you need to be taking care of sales, marketing, accounting, etc. Lots of speakers are great speakers but end up failing because they forget to run the business.

Have you ever thought about speaking professionally? Do you know what topic you would speak on? Do you spend time with professional speakers? What have they taught you about the business? What do you think I left off of my list? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: audience, keynote, presentation, presentations, presenter, professional speaker, speaker, speech topics, topic

Presenting On TV Requires 4 New Public Speaking Skills

Perhaps you have managed to overcome your fear of speaking to groups of people. Maybe you even have developed ways to deal with difficult questions and keep a presentation on track no matter what happens while you are speaking. However, are you ready to take your skills to that ultimate broadcast medium - television? Probably not, because there the rules are all different. It turns out that there are four simple things that you can do to make sure that you shine on the “boob tube”.

Jo Jo Harder is a fashion designer who found herself being asked to appear on television shows after she started her “America’s Top Dog Model” contest. Talk about being unprepared! Through her struggles and learning she has come up with four top tips for how a presenter should prepare to appear on television. Here they are:

1. Know Your Subject & Be Prepared To Talk About It: So this sounds sort of silly, but in the end it’s really the reason that you are on television in the first place - you are the expert. One thing that you need to understand about television is that it’s all about time management: you need to speak in short, crisp statements that leave an impression. Your time on camera will be very short and knowing your stuff will help you to make the most of it. I’m hoping that it goes without saying that you should spend some serious time practicing answering probable questions.
2. Study Your Customer - The TV Show: Even if you’ve never seen the show that you are going to be appearing on before, you had better spend some time coming up to speed on it. You need to know the names of the hosts, the name of the show’s producer, and of course the basic format of the show. You need to know EVERYTHING that you can find out about the show including what time of day it is on, how long it’s been on the air, where taping is going to be taking place. Of course, you also need to know WHAT you are expected to be talking about and just how long you will be expected to be speaking.
3. Looks Count (A Lot!): No matter what your mom told when you were growing up, on TV looks really do count for a lot. It’s not so much about your looks (you look maaavvolous darling), but rather it’s all about the clothes that you choose to wear. What you want to wear are bright, rich colors. What Harder recommends that we stay away from are white, ivory, and pastels with the exception of women’s blouses and men’s shirts worn under a jacket. Hopefully it goes without saying that EVERYONE needs to stay from bold prints, plaids, and check patterns. If you show up early enough and have a pleasant personality, you just might be able to get some attention from the show’s makeup artist. This can be critical because without some help, we all have a bad habit of looking “washed out” under bright lights. Now just make sure that you’ve combed the hair and trimmed the nails and you should be good to go!
4. Maintain Your Cool: Remember that television is all about ratings and so the show is having you on in order to try to boost their ratings. That means that anything can happen (”That’s interesting, but let me now introduce your long lost father…!”). Sit with your hands in your lap, your feet crossed away from the camera and look into the eyes of the person who is interviewing you. Smile as much as you can without seeming too weird. Help the show to manage its time by keeping your answers short and to the point. Always be prepared for the host to do something unusual and keep your cool at all times.

So what do you think about this list? Is there anything on the list that you don’t think is important? What should be added to the list? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: audience, expert, interview, presentation, public speaking, speaker, subject matter expert, television, TV

When Presenting To Kids, You Need To Do Things Differently

So I’m not so sure that that title is clear, but basically what I’m talking about is delivering presentations to young people. I’m talking about elementary school age folks. Like 5-11 years old. Maybe the toughest crowd that you’ll ever have to face! I come up against this tough customer at least once a year when the schools in my area have a “career day” where parents are invited to come and talk to the kids about their careers. The goal is to provide the kids with motivation to study hard and stay in school. I love the IT field; however, it’s a hard sell to kids who have just been dazzled by the policeman / fireman / soldier who all have cool uniforms and neat utility belts. On top of this career appeal challenge, there’s that issue with trying to find the right way to talk to these kids - you know, they really are not young adults just yet…

When I need help in trying to figure out how best to deal with a tough crowd like this, I know that it’s best to go talk with an expert. In this case the expert is Caren Neile who is the director of Florida Atlantic University’s Storytelling Project. Here are 10 tips for how you can not only survive a presentation to the very young, but also do a good job of it:

1. Watch Your Height: Kids are very sensitive to having to look up at a speaker. You need to do everything that you can to “be on their level”. One way to do this is to sit on the floor. Another is to sit on a chair - pretty much the opposite of what we tell you to do when speaking to adults!
2. Don’t Start Your Presentation Cold: One of the key things that you want to happen when you talk with kids is to have them behave and pay attention. This can be hard to do if they don’t know you. By spending some time with them before you start your presentation you can knock down some of the walls that exit between you and them. By doing this, you can come across as a person that they know and they’ll do a better job of paying attention to what you have to say.
3. Be Real Man: Kids hate vague “management speak”. Remember that their world is pretty much what they see on a daily basis and only the things that they can touch are real. If you speak in big broad terms (”the whole world”, “boosting productivity”, “over $1B dollars”, etc.) they simply won’t be able to grasp what you are talking about. Instead, use concrete expressions that they can easily understand (”lots of people”, “able to make even more widgets”, “enough money to fill this room from floor to ceiling”, etc.)
4. See What I’m Saying: Props are your friend when you are talking to a young audience. We’ve raised them to be multi-tasking demons and they’ll show you just how good they are at this by tuning you out and working on other tasks while you are talking unless you find a way to keep grabbing their attention. Props are one of the best ways to do this.
5. Take A Time Out: How long can you sit and effectively listen to someone? Kids can’t pay attention for even that long! Given ‘em a break before, during, and after your presentation. They will be forever grateful.
6. Have Everyone Play A Role: Much more than adults, kids love to participate in a presentation. They will be itching to do this even if you don’t want them to do so. Caren suggests that you work specific places in your presentation for them to help you out. This will help to keep their interest and will make your presentation even more memorable.
7. Get Up And Move!: Once again, we generally like it when adults sit through our presentations. With kids, things are different. If you can find a way to get them to get up and move around as part of your presentation, then they will connect with you and your message better.
8. Chill Out Man: With adults, we would often like it if they stood up and started shouting during our presentation - it would show that they were really engaged. With kids, they might just stand up and start shouting because they like to shout. Make sure that you don’t get them too riled up during your presentation or things could get out of hand.
9. Allow Learning To Happen: We all learn in our own way and kids are no exception to this rule. Some kids will appear to tune you out, may be drawing while you speak, may even get up and walk around. Don’t be offended and don’t worry about it. This may be how they learn best and you should just let it happen.

What happened last time you had a chance to speak to young kids? Did you treat them like kids or like little adults? Do you think that they understood and remembered your message? What would you do differently if you had it to do all over again? Leave a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: audience, career day, communication skills, kids, presentation, presentation skills, presenter, public speaking, speaker

Speakers Can Use Dramatic Reading To Make Their Presentations Memorable

In the bag of skills that a public speaker needs to have, there is one that is not used very often: dramatic readings. Now just because we don’t use it very often, does not mean that we shouldn’t be using it more. Remember that anything that we can do to make our presentations stand out from everything else that our audience gets assaulted with each and every day will help to make it more memorable (in a good way) and improves the chances of our message “sticking” with our audience. The big questions are when should I use a dramatic reading as a part of my presentation and just how do I go about doing it?

The first question is actually the easiest to answer. A dramatic reading from a book is a great way to do two things: add color to  a presentation and add credibility to WHAT you are talking about. Published authors often have taken a great deal of time to get their words just right. Opening a book during your presentation and reading their words to your audience allows you to capture the time and effort that they put into creating their ideas and enrich your speech by doing so. Additionally, in order to motivate your audience to make a change or to take some action (the purpose of any presentation), you need to convince them that you know what you are talking about. By reading a passage from a published book perhaps written by a well known figure in the field that you are talking about, you can reinforce your words by having them appear to support your position.

Now the big question is how best to do a dramatic reading. The problem here is that most of us have very little experience with either listening to or actually doing dramatic readings from a book. That’s why we can turn to Mark McLaughlin who is an author of horror books. Mark is often called on to give speeches that contain, what else?, dramatic readings. He probably does this much more than the rest of us ever will; however, this also means that he can teach us a lot about how to do them correctly.

Here are Mark’s top 10 tips for how we can all do dramatic readings as a part of our presentations correctly:

1. Don’t Read From The Book: Books are great for sitting by a fire and reading. They are quite poor to read from during a presentation: their print is too small, it can be hard to find your place, and turning the page is awkward at best. Instead, copy the pages and blow them up.
2. Use Voices: Something that you may not realize is that we all make different characters sound different in our head when we read a book. When you are reading from a book, you need to use a different voice for each character so that your audience doesn’t get confused about who is talking or thinking.
3. Prepare Using A Rainbow: Mark up what you are going to be reading using many different colored highlighters. This way you will automatically remember to switch voices when you are reading.
4. Characters Are More Than Just Voices: Different characters can have different mannerisms and these can be useful when you are reading their lines. Smokers should have a raspy voice, nervous characters should speak quickly, etc.
5. Try Out Different Voices: You won’t get it right the first time so be sure to experiment with different voices in order to find the one that will capture the character the best for your audience.
6. Practice, Practice, Practice: This is always a good idea and it’s even more critical when doing a dramatic reading. McLaughlin recommends that you practice at least a dozen times and even more if you feel that you need it.
7. The Power Of A Friendship: Nothing beats live feedback. Try your presentation out on friends and see what kind of feedback they give you. This can be worth its weight in gold.
8. Look At Your Audience While Reading To Them: You can’t do this all the time of course; however, eye contact is always a good idea.
9. Have A Panic Button Ready: Look, anyone can lose their place while doing a reading - it happens to all of us. If this happens to you, have a question about the reading ready to ask an audience member. Use the time that they are speaking to find your spot again, mark it with a finger, thank the audience member for their answer and then continue on.
10. Enjoy Yourself!: Dramatic readings are done all to rarely in presentations today. The fact that you have been willing to step up, practice, and then deliver a dramatic reading shows that you are better than the average speaker. When your audience sees that you are enjoying yourself, then they will get into it also and your presentation will be your best ever!

Have you ever been to a presentation where the speaker used a dramatic reading? How did it turn out - was it well done or half-baked? Have you ever had a chance to use a dramatic reading as a part of one of your speeches? Did you practice enough? How did it turn out for you? Leave a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: audience, characters, dramatic reading, presentation, public speaking, reading, speaker, voice

Just Creating A Presentation Is Not Good Enough, You Have To Practice It Also

So you’ve got a big presentation / speech coming up. How many times should you practice your speech before you give it for real? This is actually a very good question that most presenters either forget to ask themselves or come up with the wrong answer to. We all know that practice makes perfect so how can we tell when we’ve reached perfection with our speech?

We should probably start with the good news: even a little practice will probably make you better than most presenters. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to sit through a train-wreck of a presentation that clearly showed that the presenter had laid out some thoughts on paper, but had not taken the time to practice what he/she was going to say.

If you want to create and deliver a great presentation, there are three key interlocked factors that you need to make sure that you take care of:

1. Make sure that the speech plays to your speaking strengths. If you hate to give speeches, make sure that this one is as short as possible in order to minimize your time “on stage”. If you are good at telling stories, then include them in your presentation.
2. Establish good connections between the different parts of the speech. Ensuring that the speech flows smoothly and logically from section to section will make it much easier for you to memorize the flow of the speech.
3. Make sure that you have your speech down cold before you deliver it. You’ll know that you’ve been able to do this when you could recite it by heart if someone asked you to do so at a moment’s notice. This will ensure that when you deliver your presentation the words tumble out of your mouth automatically and with no effort.

I’m not sure if you really want to hear this, but you cannot over-rehearse a presentation. I know that you are dying for a hard number to hang your hat on so here it is: 7. I firmly believe that any presentation that you are going to deliver deserves at least seven practice runs by you. The first will be a flaming disaster and the seventh should be quite good. This means that your “for real” presentation will be (at least) the 8th time that you’ve delivered the material and it should flow from you quite naturally. Key point: if this is one of those career defining presentations then you should probably practice it at least 15 times in order to make sure that each and every word comes out perfectly.

So we’ve answered the question of “how many” times you should practice, now the follow on question is “how to practice”. The key to the first few run throughs is to make sure that you are in a secure environment in which you won’t be interrupted. For most of us, this means a bathroom that has a lock on the door. The added advantage of practicing in a bathroom is that there is a large mirror in front of you and you can watch yourself as you talk. I can assure you that it’s hard to do, but you’ll eliminate unnecessary moves and twitches quickly when you practice this way. Beginning speakers often want to make their presentation “perfect”. This means that when they are practicing, they will speak until they screw-up, grit their teeth and then go back to the beginning and start over. This ensures that it’s going to be hours before they can make it through the entire speech. I recommend a different approach: start at the beginning and just run though the entire speech until you hit the end. Yes, there will be screw-ups; however, just keep on going. Doing it this way will allow you to get a feel for the speech as a whole and you may end up changing big parts of it - no need to perfect something that you’re going to be changing anyway.

Last point: get feedback. If the first time that you get feedback is when you present to your “real” audience than you’ve made a mistake. I can’t begin to tell you just how important it is to get feedback from real humans as you prepare a presentation. Words and ideas that seem to flow together for you may turn out to be confusing gibberish to them. Your cutting and trimming to make your speech fit in the allotted time may have caused you to skip over important definitions and concepts that are critical to your audience’s understanding of your main points. It does not matter if the feedback comes from family, friends, strangers, or co-workers, just make sure that you get it.

How many time did you rehearse your last presentation? Did you feel that this was enough times to get it down or do you wish that you had practiced more? Who do you use as an audience for your practice presentations? Do they give you valuable feedback? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: audience, practice, presentation, presentations, presenter, public speaker, public speaking, speaker, speakers

Using A Personal Story Can Really Help Your Speech

Oh, this one’s an easy question to answer: your story. I don’t care if you are giving a speech about the company’s 3rd Quarter profits, or telling an audience about the best way to water-proof a roof, if you work a personal story into your speech it will instantly become a memorable speech. Now with that being said, if you do a bad job of working your personal story into your speech you will probably bore your audience to death. Hmmm, I wonder what the secret to doing this correctly is…

The first thing that you need to realize is that if you just up and tell a personal story, the odds are that it’ll fall flat. Although we might think that every story we have to tell is a great tale, this simply is not the case. Instead, your story needs to be taken out, sharpened, and perhaps even polished just a bit before you tell it to an audience. One way to get things started is to sit down and just write / type it all out. Don’t hold back here, just make it as long as it wants to be. Capture your story of overcoming a challenge, fighting a setback, dealing with a health issue, bad relationship, or financial disaster in all of it’s glory. Remember, your audience was not there so you need to remember what it felt like and communicate what all of your five senses were feeling.

Once you have it all written down, now is the time to start to shape it. Your story needs a good clear opening. Let your audience know why this is important. You also need to be aware of just how much time your have for your speech and your story within your speech. You’ll need to trim it down to fit the time available.

Once you’ve got your personal story sorta looking like it’s ready for prime time, now is the time to do some extra checking in order to make sure that it really is a good story to tell. The first thing that you can do is to be very clear about where and when your story took place. Instead of saying “back when I was in college” instead you need to say “12 years ago…” This will allow your audience to better identify with your story.

We all love movies and we’re use to watching them. Just like a movie, your personal story will “play” better if you are able to tell it as a series of connected scenes. Your words will paint scenes in your audience’s minds and these images will then blend together to create a complete movie of your story for them.

Create some drama by telling your story just like you felt it. If you hold back on some information and allow the audience to discover it just as you did, the tension in the room will quickly start to rise. The good thing about creative tension is that it means that your audience will be hanging on your every word.

Finally, you need a great conclusion that brings your audience back into the here and now. One way to do this to take just a moment and explain why the story that you told was so important to you. What did it all mean to you? Your personal story is yours and yours alone. You never have to worry about someone else telling it because it’s all about you. Good luck in adding a personal speech to your next public speaking opportunity and making it unforgettable!

Have you ever had a chance to work a personal story into a speech? How did that speech turn out? Do you take the time to practice personal stories or do you just wing it because you knew the story so well? Have you ever heard a speaker tell a personal story that was badly done? What was wrong with it? Leave a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: communication skills, personal story, public speaker, public speaking, speaker, speaking, story

It Can Be Hard To Do A Good Job Talking About Money

Money - it’s a love / hate thing. We all would like to have lots of the stuff; however, most people (us included) would probably rather lose a finger than have to sit though yet another incredibly boring presentation about the green stuff. Why is this? It’s actually pretty easy to understand what’s wrong with most presentations about money: it is presented in a boring way, the PowerPoint slides that are used are crammed with numbers that are way too small for any human to be able to read, and the presenter often uses vocabulary that we don’t understand. What can be done to fix this?

We already know that one of the most effective ways to deliver a presentation that will “stick” with your audience is to tell them a compelling story. A presentation about money should be no different - it’s the story that you tell that will get your point across. Keeping that in mind, here are some tips that will make your next presentation on money unforgettable:

1. K.I.S.S: No, not the rock group, but rather Keep It Simple Stupid. In other words, whenever you talk about money there can be the tendency to say too much. DON’T DO IT! Instead, before you create your speech write out a single sentence that contains the message that you want your audience to walk away with. Then, when you are describing some financial tool re-read this sentence and determine if what you are talking about supports it. If not, then drop it and move on.
2. Come Early, Leave Late: This is just a basic speaker tip; however, it’s even more important when you are talking about money. Making sure that you don’t have to worry about your equipment or the room gives you more time to focus on what you are going to be saying. Not having to run out at the end means that you can provide more detail for those who really want it.
3. Bring A Partner To Help - Mr. Handout: Since much of what you may be talking about can be (a) complex and (b) detailed, this is one speech that you do want to provide a handout for. However, don’t do what too many speakers do and just give everyone a copy of your slides. Instead, create a special handout that provides detailed information about things that you didn’t have time to cover.
4. Careful About Colors: Since so much of what is shown in any presentation on money is charts, you need to carefully check your colors. Stay away from the common color-blindness colors and make sure that all of your text is readable from the back of the room.
5. Shut Her Down When You Don’t Need Her: All too often an audience in a talk about money can start to pay more attention to the slides than the speaker. One way to put a stop to this is to either turn off the projector every so often or, even better yet, put a completely black slide into your deck when you want all eyes on  you. It’s startling and it works really well.
6. Do The Dark / Light Thing: Making your PowerPoint slides readable is critical. One way to help this happen is to make sure that the contrast between your slides’ background color and the foreground colors is very distinct. For a large room, I’ve found that making your slide background dark while making your text and drawings light colored makes everything readable even from the back of the room.
7. Turn Off The Hollywood Effects: PowerPoint and other presentation applications allow you to go wild on how one slide goes away and the next one shows up - transitions. Here’s a suggestion : don’t. Either pick one transition and use it throughout your presentation or only vary the transition when you really want to draw attention to the new slide. Otherwise you risk training your audience to look forward to your next transition and not what you are saying.
8. Don’t Create A Fighter Pilot Eye Exam: I can’t tell you just how important this one is - make sure that you keep your font selections to a minimum and make sure that all text is large enough to be read. I like to choose “sans serf” fonts because they don’t have the loopy stuff and are generally easier to read. I’ve also found that the 18 pt font size is the smallest that you want to use, otherwise it just gets too hard to read.
9. Remember What A Picture Is Worth: Instead of trying to overwhelm your audience with words that describe technical financial terms, instead try to use more charts and graphs. Displaying a chart and then talking about it gives your audience time to apply your words to real situations and promotes understanding and retention.
10. Remember That Only 5 lbs. Will Fit In A 5 lbs. Bag: Avoid the #1 sin of public speakers who talk about money - putting too much information on a single slide. We can fall in love with the way that we describe something and we like to add more and more details to it. However, take a moment and think about your poor audience. Try to present just the bare minimum amount of information that they need on each slide.

By following these simple tips you can create a powerful presentation that makes an impression on your audience and leaves them with the thoughts and ideas that you want them to have.

Have you ever given a presentation that talked about money? How did it turn out - was it well received or did your audience go to sleep after your second slide? What made your presentation work / not work? What did you think about the last financial presentation that you went to - did the speaker follow these tips or did he/she make you want to leave? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: audience, communication skills, money, presentation skills, public speaker, speaker, speech topics

Learn How To Write Your Speeches To Be Memorable And To Make An Impact!

Go to any book store and you’ll find a 6″ long section of books that promise to teach you how to deliver a speech in public better. What’s all to often missing from this avalanche of advice is any real guidance on how to create a speech that will work for your audience. No matter how well you deliver a speech, it will all be for naught if the speech itself does not do a good job of telling your story & making your point.

Perhaps this is a good time for us to take a moment and consider what a speech really is (I’m a big fan of the basics). At its core, a speech is simply an opportunity for you to tell your audience about something that you are interested in. The part that all too many people seem to overlook is that you really want your speech to be memorable. In other words, after you stop talking, you would like people in the audience to be able to remember what you said, and even better, take action based on it. This all means that WHAT you say and HOW you say it are very important. Here’s the zinger: it’s not the topic that boring, but rather how it’s presented that can be boring.

Sometimes you get to pick what you want to talk about, most of the time you are told. The very first question that you need to ask yourself is: why am I giving this speech? What is my one, single purpose? This can generally be found in one of five big words: to inform, to inspire, to entertain, to motivate, or to convince. Once you’ve picked one of these (yes, you can only pick one) then you are set to do the most important part of speech creation: pick the slant.

The slant (or focus if you prefer) is what makes your speech stand out. You want to pick a particular angle that your audience may not be expecting and then you approach your subject from there.

Finally, you need to boil your entire speech down into one single sentence. This sentence, if printed on cards and and handed out to your audience, would leave them with the essence of your speech if you were not able to show up and speak. You would never hand out this sentence and in fact you might not even use it as part of your speech. However, simply by creating it you will have allowed the main point of your speech to crystallize in your head that that will make all the difference in the world.

How good of a job do you feel that you do when you have to write a speech? Do you take the time to determine the ultimate purpose of your speech? How do you go about picking the slant that you want to use? Have you ever written down just one sentence that describes the point that you want to make? Leave a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Technorati Tags: audience, communication skills, presentations, public speaking, speaker, speech writing