Public Speaking: Shock 'Em

When I was planning for my last all day presentation I was considering the post lunch sleepiness that most audiences experience. I wanted to do something totally different that I knew would shock them out of their afternoon low. So I bought a muskrat trap.

I was talking about the "traps" AKA deep trouble you could get into by spam email marketing. I set the trap with great care. Then I put a pencil into the trap to set it off. The pencil snapped showing the trap to be real . . . This got their attention. I then reset the trap and talked about how learning what I was going to teach them in the next section would keep them from getting hurt in the email spam trap.

Then, with lots of suspense building as I approached the trap, I set it off with my bare hand, I let out a fake Karate-like scream, the trap slammed on my hand and I held it up hanging from my fingers. . . . Believe me this got their attention!

DO NOT TRY THIS! DO NOT TRY THIS! DO NOT TRY THIS!

I know how to do this without getting hurt. I am not responsible if you break your finger or get hurt in any way !!!

There are many other ways to shock people. You could put a needle through a balloon, you could stick a knife through one of their coats. Stop by any magic or gag shop for tons of ideas. Just don't get too outrageous and scare people unnecessarily.

Get A Full 30 Days Of Speaker Training For Only $5.00!

Public Speaking: Cool, Custom, & Cheap Content Sheets

This technique has saved me thousands of dollars in printing costs and helped close more deals too. I print up a ton of two color letter size sheets that are blank except for a photo and a colored border. This is pretty cheap to do. I keep my program descriptions on my computer.

When a meeting organizer calls me for information, I interview him or her and write down keywords that are said to me. For instance, someone might tell me that morale is down and they need some excitement during the program. I'm jotting down the words, "morale" and "excitement." After we hang up, I go to my computer and alter my standard program description to include phrases like "this program is great for morale" or "this program generates lots of excitement."

When I print out the program description on one of the two color blanks, I end up with a custom program description that LOOKS like it came from the printer. When the meeting organizer gets it, I know they say, "Wow! This was just what we were looking for!"

How do I know this? I know it because they tell me when they call to book the job!

Get 30 Days Of Public Speaking Training For Only $5.00!

Public Speaking: Simple Sells

I've come up with example after example over the past couple years of how having a simple, yet professional website attracts business better than a complicated flashy site. Again, this month I've got an awesome example of a site that for a very tiny investment has brought me an enormous return. That site is http://www.public-speaking.org

This month it got in the very prestigious section of "Inc. Magazine" called "Best of the Web." Not only did it get in the section, it got the highest rating of all the other sites, some of which were backed by extremely large corporations. You can read the entire article here http://www2.inc.com/search/23233.html

Folks, this didn't happen by accident, although there is always an element of good fortune when something like this occurs. My experience has shown that gaining knowledge in your field usually accelerates your good fortune.

The technique I used with this site was to prepare it specifically for acceptance by Yahoo! the grandaddy of all the search directories. It has a clean and simple appearance. It'sextremely easy to navigate. The name is alphabetical so it getslisted higher in the directory. It has a nice graphic banner with the organization name on it. The site has many other nuances that I teach in Butt Camp to secure a good Yahoo! listing. The only thing at all that moves on the site is a pop up box that I only recently put on to get more ezine subscribers.

Here are some of the comments from their panel of CEOs: "Quick and easy to use. The glossary lists most of the important things that all speakers should know." "Excellent content." They didn't say, "I was so impressed with a hard to load annoying Flash presentation" now did they?

Get people that don't know you, or that don't know you well to go through your website and pick it apart. Yes, it might hurt after you've sunk tons of money into some fabulous artistic design, but it's going to hurt worse if no one comes to your site because they can't find it easily and if they come there and leave immediately because they can't figure out what to do.

Get A full 30 Days Of Public Speaking Training for Only $5.00!

Tom Antion: Speaker Humor

=>"You know how to tell if the teacher is hung over?? Movie Day."-- Jay Mohr

=>"Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I'm halfway through my fishburger and I realize, Oh my God... I could be eating a slow learner."-- Lynda Montgomery

=>"If you ever see me getting beaten by the police, put down the video camera and come help me."-- Bobcat Goldthwait

=>"Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Kuwait."-- A. Whitney Brown

=>"I'm a psychic amnesiac. I know in advance what I'll forget."-- Michael McShane

=>"Relationships are hard. It's like a full-time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks' notice. There should be severance pay, and before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp."-- Bob Ettinger

Get More Public Speaking Humor!

Public Speaking: Humor!

=> If we had an instant replay camera like the NFL has we could watch that joke die again.

=> I asked the meeting planner what I should talk about. He/she said, "about 20 minutes."

=> GOOD SPEECH FORMULA: Have a good beginning; a good ending; and keep them close together.

=> He who hesitates is probably right.

=> No one is listening until you make a mistake.

=> Two wrongs are only the beginning.

=> The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

=> If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

Get More Speaker Humor!

Public Speaking: 5 Tips To Make 'Em Love You!

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

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

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

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

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

Get More Great Public Speaking Tips!

Public Speaking: Sound Effects

Making noises on stage just for fun or to represent your concept is a way to get some laughs from the audience.

To get people's attention I use a thing called a "rubber razzer" that makes a funny sound when you blow in one end. Sometimes I use an electronic horn from Radio Shack that plays short segments from 60 different recognizable tunes. In the old days I used a train whistle which always got a chuckle. Most recently I use a .wav file that I keep on the desktop of my laptop. I tell the audience how I use Internet marketing techniques to bring email orders into my inbox. I've set my Outlook email program to recognize an order and go ka ching, kaching, ka ching, ka ching which, of course, is representative of the cash register ringing. It always gets a laugh.

You can buy sound effect CDs at just about any major computer store, or you can search in any major search engine for sound effects files which you can download and use according to the permission granted by the site.

Think about any of your concepts that could be represented by a sound and you'll have a very easy way to add some humor to your presentation.

Get 30 Days Of Public Speaking Training For Only $5.00!

Public Speaking: Reprinting Articles

I have many articles available for reprint in your publication, company newsletter, etc.

You may use articles written by me that you see in great speaking. Back issues can be viewed at

http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues.htm

OR mailto: freearticles@antion.com for an automated listof additional articles. All you have to do is print the article in its entirety along with the by line at top and the credits, and complete contact information at the end of each article.

I would appreciate a tear sheet or electronic copy too. Thanks!

Get 30 Days Of Public Speaking Training For Only $5.00!

Public Speaking: Evaluation Funnies

You can have great fun by telling people what to write on their evaluation sheets. Of course you have to make sure that the people reading them have a good sense of humor. If they do, here are some ideas:

Patricia Fripp tells the audience, "If you like me, write on your evaluation sheet, 'bring her back and pay her double.'"

I've had them write all kinds of bizarre stuff like:"I didn't like his green spiked hair." (I'm obviously corporate looking with short black hair)

"You give me great hope that I can also be a speaker because you are obviously illiterate."

"There are three things I liked about today's speaker . . . I just can't think of any of them right now."

Think up a bunch of your own and have fun when evaluation time comes.

Get A Full 30 Days Of Public Speaking Training For Only $5.00!

Public Speaking: Go Early

I recently spoke to about 450 people at Mark Joyner's Survival Tactics Marketing Seminar. I spoke on the last day after many fine speakers had gone before me.

My tip here is to listen to all the speakers before you whenever you can. That way you can either refer back to what they said or avoid duplicating things they said which would reflect poorly on you.In this case I was also able to pick out things from the other speakers and play off them.

EXAMPLE: Superstar speaker Ted Nicholas said that advances in health care and longevity would soon allow people to live to be 120 years old. He said he was going to throw a $10,000.00 seminar on his 120th birthday. I came on and said that not only was I going to throw a $10,000.00 seminar on my 120th birthday, but that I was going to give the audience members a big discount if they gave me a deposit today. -- Everyone cracked up.

So go early when you can and pay attention to the other speakers.

Get More Great Tips On Public Speaking!

Public Speaking: Lay Down The Law

It is always best to communicate a clear set of groundrules near the beginning of a presentation. For instance, if you do not want questions until the end of your program, state that up front and get agreement from the group.

If comments from the audience are allowed, ask that they be kept to a certain amount of time (like 30 seconds or less). Getting everyone to agree to your plan in the beginning puts enormous peer pressure on an individual violating any of the rules.

Get 30 Days Of Speaker Training For Only $5.00!

Public Speaking: BALANCE YOUR MOUTH AND YOUR VISUALS

I got a nice compliment from the self publishing guru Dan Poynter who attended one of my Internet Marketing seminars. He said,"Tom, you have a really nice balance of speaking and visuals." This was very pleasing to hear because it's exactly what I teach in the "Wake 'em Up Speaking System." During the course of a grueling, high content day, I:

1. Spoke
2. Used a variety of video CDs which I paused and discussed when appropriate.
3. Used a white board on the opposite end of the room (I made people stand up and walk to the back of the room to see that segment.
4. Used a comical prop to make a point.
5. Used other props as demonstrations and also made people standup and move to another part of the room to view them.
6. Used audience input.

Sometimes I use dueling flip charts. Here's a variety of positions that will keep them interested:

=> Two or more flip charts at the front of the room
=> Many spread around the room
=> One or more at the front and the others at the back of the room, or
=> Several at the back of the room.

The idea is to vary as much as possible the type of material the audience is seeing and hearing in an effort to keep their attention. Don't go too long without making a significant change in delivery technique. This technique works for keynote length presentations all the way up to multiday workshops.