Public Speaking : ENTRANCE VISUALS

Some type of visual in the room as the participants enter is a good way to signal them that your presentation will be different. It could be an interesting picture or funny quotation on the overhead or PowerPoint screen or a nicely done color flip chart page. You could have helium balloons or colorful airbags lining the walkway into the seating area of your presentation.

Use anything that makes the participants take notice. It will build their anticipation of your presentation.

Public Speaking : PUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE IN THE PALM OF THEIR HANDS

If you have a book or specialized reports and articles you can have them formatted to be sold to millions of Palm Pilot and Visor users. This market is growing by leaps and bounds and there is no reason you can't tap it.

Not only that. Just think of the possibilities when you are at meetings or on airplanes and you run into a hot prospect. Simply beam him/her your book. This sure beats the heck out of a simple business card.

Public Speaking : REBOOT AND KNOW YOUR EQUIPMENT

A typical problem I see with presenters that use Power Point or other computer based presentations is that they forget to reboot before the presentation. Many conscientious presenters practice their presentation just prior to the actual delivery. They use up many of the computer resources before their presentation and when the time comes to deliver the program to the audience their computer crashes.

The other problem I see with computer presentations is that people don't know their equipment well enough or they are using the equipment provided by the meeting planner. You must set your computer so that no screen saver or power savers comes on. You must know how to get your projector out of sleep mode when the introducer goes on forever. Sometimes two computers are attached to the same projector. You must know how to switch between the two when it's your turn to present. Or you may be switching between a VCR and a computer.

The whole point is that you don't want to have your presentation ruined by some simple adjustments that you didn't know about.

Public Speaking : STORYTELLING TIPS

=> Use stories during public speaking engagements to illustrate points and state the point in addition to telling the story. Always make your story relevant to the subject at hand.

=> Select stories to match the intelligence, experience, occupation, and age of the audience as well as the nature of the occasion. You don't want to talk over the heads of the audience members and you don't want to bore them with stories that are too simple.

=> Space stories at intervals to provide a change of pace and to remphasize your message.

=> Tell about your troubles, stupidity, or ignorance. People like you when you use self-effacing humor because they see themselves mirrored in your weaknesses.

=> Eliminate inconsequential detail. Use the fewest number of words that convey the message in an interesting fashion. Writing the story out will help you see words that can be eliminated without hurting the story.

=> Keep your humorous stories short during your public speaking engagements. The size of the laugh is inversely proportional to the number of words used to get to the punch line.

Rule: The longer a funny story is, the funnier it must be. You must make jokes and humorous stories believable up to a point. Use factual, specific details that the audience can relate to, i.e., say the brand name like Lots-o-Suds rather than a laundry detergent. The more truthful and specific the story sounds the more your audience will get caught up in what you say.

Public Speaking : DON'T GO TO THE BATHROOM

I just spoke at an association meeting where I had set up all my equipment and got everything working just right. Before the event, I made the big mistake of going to the bathroom while other audio visual people were coming into the room. When I returned, my entire setup was moved. They actually picked my table up with my laptop and moved it about 8 feet closer to the screen which made the picture so small no one would have been able to see it. They insisted on using their projector which was a piece of junk (we ended up using mine anyway) and they generally disrupted my entire pre-program setup work.

So, don't leave a careful setup unattended and always be there early to take care of nightmares like this BEFORE the attendees arrive.

Public Speaking : HUMOR TECHNIQUE - Toasts

Toasting is not nearly as common as it once was. However, the polished presenter should have a few short toasts ready to go if and when the occasion arises. Here are a few fun toasts and a few touching ones too:

Birthdays:

=> To your birthday, glass held high. Glad it's you that's older not I.

=> Heres to you. No matter how old you are, you don't look it.

Christmas:

=> Twas the month after Christmas, and Santa had flit; Came there
tidings in the mail, which read: Please remit.

=> Here's to the Holly with its bright red berry. Here's to Christmas, let's make it merry.

Meals:

=> Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you diet.

=> A full belly, a heavy purse, and a light heart.

Friendship:

=> Here's to a friend who knows me well and likes me anyway.

=> May the friends of our youth be the companions of our old age.

Banquet speech ending:

=> Good day, good health, good cheer, good night!

Health:

=> Here's to your health. You make age curious, time furious, and all of us envious.

Luck:

=> As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never face the wrong way.

=> May your luck be like the capital of Ireland. Always Dublin.

New Year:

=> May all our troubles in the coming year be as short as our New Year's resolutions.

=> In the year ahead may we treat our friends with kindness and our enemies with generosity.

Marriage:

=> Marriage is an institution, but who wants to live in an institution. --Groucho Marx

=> May for "better or worse" be far better than worse.

To close this section I would like to tell you that I feel like aloaf of bread. Wherever I go, they toast me.

Public Speaking : Callbacks

If you refer to a word or phrase you mentioned earlier in your presentation, that's a callback. It works well if the previous piece of material got a good laugh or if it was a groaner. If the previous material was good, mentioning it again will get more laughter and will make you look polished for being able to tie the previous material to the present material. If the previous material was poor, the callback will show your willingness to tease yourself, which is an admirable quality the audience appreciates.

Here's how it works: Let's say you used a successful two-liner in your presentation

"Don't rely on health books too much. You could die of a misprint."

Later in your presentation someone might notice a misspelling in one of your handouts or visuals. You could then call back and say, "See, that's one of those misprints I was telling you about earlier." Another thing that might happen, that is just as good, is that one or more of the audience members might make the connection and do the callback for you. One of them may blurt out something about your health book line. That's great if they do. You are getting them involved and allowing them to feel superior to you, which makes them the stars. You could then come back with, See, I put that there to test you. When you really get confident, you might actually make the misprint on purpose to set up this whole scenario.

Public Speaking : BACKWARDS

I was just at a meeting where a brilliant speaker made the classic mistake of making a point backwards from the audience's point of view.

He used a pole as a prop and held it horizontal to the ground to simulate a time line of human life. He touched the pole on the end to represent childhood then ran his finger along the middle of the pole to represent adulthood and touched the other end of the pole to show where old age would be.

The problem was, he started at the wrong end of the pole. From his perspective everything was perfect. He started childhood to"his" left and finished with old age to "his" right. From the perspective of an English speaking audience (the members of which read left to right) this was backwards. If you were sitting in his audience, you saw old age where childhood would have been and vice versa.

This mistake falls in the category of what I call a brainstopper (Vol 2 Num 8 http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues2000.htm )When you do something or say something that causes and audience member's thought pattern to stop, he/she doesn't hear what you say next. In this case the backwards display of time would have audience members thinking about the wrong order instead of the point the speaker was trying to make. I could even see some people in the crowd whispering to each other about it when he did it.

Think from the audience's point of view when you make a similar display that has a logical sequence. You will have to reverse the display from your point of view for it to make sense to the audience.

Public Speaking : LapTop Volume

More and more people are playing multimedia clips through their laptops. Here's a quick way to handle the volume when you do not have a sound person in the room. Purchase a tiny headphone volume control (Radio Shack) and plug it into the output of your laptop. Then plug your output wire going to the sound system into thevolume control. You can then adjust the volume of your multimedia clip quickly without the need to use the internal volume controls of the laptop which is usually a little bit of a hassle.

Public Speaking : 5 Tips to Make 'em LOVE Ya

=> Be down to earth. Nobody likes the aloof talking head.

=> Phone as many attendees as you can before the program and asktheir opinions. Use the information to make them the stars.

=> Mingle with attendees before the program and make small talklike telling them Tom is single. The personal connection goes along way.

=> Thoroughly research the problems of the group and bringimmediately usable solutions. They can't help but like you whenyou help them out.

=> Stay as long as you can after the program. If you can arrangeit, don't run out the door and leave them cold. If you have toleave, offer email follow up for any unanswered questions.

Public Speaking : AUTOMATE, AUTOMATE, AUTOMATE

People comment to me all the time, "Tom, your name shows up everywhere. How do you do it?" Basically I let my fingers do the talking. I learned how to speed things up in my office by using technology. I can think up promotions and distribute them worldwide in a matter of minutes. When you learn how to harness that kind of power it is relatively easy to make your name show up in more and more places.
Here are some ways to speed things up:

=> Learn how to use email filters so you don't have to wade through tons of junk email.

=> Learn to use signature files to insert long strings of text that you type frequently in your emails.

=> Learn to use the auto text feature in your word processor that recognizes strings of frequently typed text and types the rest in for you automatically.

=> Learn to use autoresponders which automatically respond to customer inquiries 24 hours per day.

=> Learn to use sequential autoresponders to do multiple follow up letters to your prospects again automatically.

=> Try out free programs like Short Keys Lite that will type any text you want by pressing only two keys.

=> Use good list management software or a list management company to control your email lists. (This saves me at least three hours work every time I send out one of these ezines.)

=> Collect questions you field over and over and make a FAQ(frequently asked question) page on your website and also duplicate it in a signature file so you can email it to people.

Public Speaking : SIMILE

Simile is a comparison of two things which, however different in other respects, have some strong point or points in common. The words "like" and "as" will normally be used when making the comparison.

You might say, Getting this contract signed is as impossible as trying to smuggle daybreak past a rooster. Contracts and roosters don't have much in common (which is funny), but in this case the presenter is telling you what they do have in common. Getting the contract signed and smuggling daybreak past a rooster are both impossible. You could shorten the last simile by changing "as impossible as" to "like." Getting this contract signed is "like" trying to smuggle daybreak past a rooster. In this case, the audience must make the interpretation that both are impossible. It's good to make the audience think sometimes because it forces them to be involved.

A recurring theme with me is that humor surrounds you wherever you go. I got a great simile out of a child's joke book I acquired (if something is valuable you acquire it) for 10 cents at a flea market. I used this line in presentations all over the country. I used to do a seminar called Business Lite: Low Cost/No Cost Ways to Improve Productivity. In that seminar I talk about how employees feel at work. I say, "Sometimes you go to work and you feel like a turtle with claustrophobia. You've got to be there, but you feel closed in."

I like to mix and match many types of humor in one concise chunk. Here's a simile that I just love.

"If you put his brain on a matchstick, it would be like rolling a BB down a four-lane highway."

Let's break this one-liner down to see how several different forms of humor were used.

Putting a person's brain on a matchstick and rolling a BB down a four-lane highway are both ludicrous juxtapositions. No one is going to put someone's brain on a matchstick, or roll a BB down a four-lane highway.

This piece of humor is a simile because the two ludicrous juxtapositions are compared with the word like.

The effect of the simile is to exaggerate how small this man's brain is.

So, three different types of humor juxtaposition, simile and exaggeration were combined to make a great one-liner. These are the types of relationships you would explore if you were feeling adventurous and decided to write some of your own humor. Many of the one-liners you run across will be combinations like this. You don't have to be able to dissect them like I just did. All you have to be able to do is pick the ones that make your point (in this case similes), and use them where and when appropriate.

Public Speaking : PREPARE BUT AVOID SCRIPTS by Terry Paulson, Ph.D.,CSP,CPAE

Some people script out their entire message. Some people are even successful doing it that way. But most speakers lose far more than they gain by preparing exact wording for an entire speech. Craft and shape your opening and closing, but don't fall victim to scripting the whole thing. As a pilot, you plan and execute with precision your take off and landing, but once air borne know how to enjoy the ride taking people to the locations they want to see. Once you are soaring on the wings of words, don't be trapped by the words you have deposited on any page. You don't take cue cards to a party. Prepare, but make your presentation a party for all involved.

Speak from you passion and preparation to serve in the moment. Look into their eyes. Come from experience and make sure you and your audience enjoy the ride. Keep an eye on the fuel gage and when the clock says you're nearly out of time, go back to that targeted and prepared close. Don't be a slave to a speech when everyone wants to soar along with you!