Tom Antion - Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia

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Public Speaking - Time Of Day

The first speaker of the day for an early morning (7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.) program should not expect hearty laughter. People are not conditioned to laugh a great deal in the early morning. Many won't even be awake yet. Use more information and less humor. I was asked by a sales speaker to open up an early morning seminar. He said, "I just want you to get them laughing before I go on." I told him that it was not a good idea, but he insisted. I opened up the
seminar with some sure-fire humor to test their responsiveness and got little response. I cut my material and brought the speaker on stage. He couldn't get them laughing either. I sat in the audience and watched. By 10:15 a.m. they were laughing at just about anything.

It's important for you to know when NOT to expect hearty laughter. It would be a waste of time to use your best material at a time when laughter normally wouldn't be expected. If you didn't know that early morning programs aren't the best for laughter, you might have your confidence shaken so badly that the rest of your presentation might slide into Z-land. Also, keep in mind that I am giving you general principles. You might run into a lively group sometime just don't expect it.

Many consider brunch to be the best time of day to expect a responsive audience. It is late enough that the folks who sleep late are now awake, but not so late in the day that early risers are starting to get tired. Lunch is generally a time for good response for the same reasons as brunch. In the afternoon people are starting to get tired. Audience members will retain less because they are not listening as closely as they did in the morning. You can use more humor and less hard information, but don't expect laughter to be as intense.

The last speaker of a long afternoon or evening program should not expect a great response, again because folks are too worn out. Keep your presentation short and crisp and acknowledge the lateness so that the audience knows you care about them. One time I was the last speaker on a long program in Baltimore, Maryland, for a food service management company. I was being
introduced at 8:35 p.m. on a Monday night in the fall. What do you think the mostly male audience was thinking at 8:35 p.m. on a Monday night in the Fall?

Of course! MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL!

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Public Speaking - Dynamic Range Quick Fixes

* If your material is all serious, add some that is lighthearted and vice versa.
* If you always speak softly, speak loudly sometimes and vice versa.
* Work to improve your diction, but allow it to falter in front of less articulate audiences.
* If you always stand still, move sometimes and vice versa.
* If you have the option, pick audiences that give you the greatest chance of success.


The WOW Factor of your Dynamic Range


What do you do during your presentations that cause the audience to say WOW? Dewitt Jones, a former photographer for National Geographic uses slides that literally give you goose pimples. Tom Ogden, an award winning magician from the Magic Castle in Los Angeles uses, what else, magic. Dave Gorden tells a story about Walt Disney. I use a special freeze frame video segment and shoot fire in the air.


In fact, there are many things that you can use or do to make your audience say WOW! You may have great voice quality like my friend, author and former radio announcer, Rick Ott. You may use your appearance like professional speaker Larry Winget who wears funny glasses and ties.



You might sing or play a musical instrument or juggle or use props. If you want to push your name up the memorability chart, put something unique in your presentations that causes the audience members to go WOW!



Quick Tips To Increase Your Dynamic Range!

Tom Antion - More Sales Tips

Don't forget to make your sales pitch. Some salespersons get so wrapped up
in telling jokes they forget to go for the business.

Use testimonials. They can be delivered live by happy clients who are willing
to help you or in writing or by video or audio tape. You could make a funny
video which includes bloopers.

Keep your ego out of the sale. Remember the sales profession is a
profession of rejection. In most cases, it is not you that is being rejected.

Develop and use impressive color visuals. According to a study by the
Wharton Business School, presenters who used them were more apt to win
favorable decisions.

Develop humor to support your points, products and services. Go for quality
humor and stories instead of quantity.

Develop ad-libs for equipment failure and other expected unexpected
occurrences.

Add some type of attention-gaining device every few minutes to keep your
clients alert.

Learn more tips to increase sales!

New professional speaking articles

Check out seven new short articles on professional speaking:

How to Become a Motivational Speaker

How to Become a Professional Speaker

Have You Ever Dreamed of Being a Motivational Keynote Speaker?

Professional Speaking Really Exists

Make Your Own Public Speaking Job

Why You Shouldn't Have a Motivational Speaking Business Card

Letter to Invite a Keynote Speaker

Public Speaking: Airline Food For Thought

OK, you choke on the food, or if you fly Southwest a lot like I do, you dont even get any food. Why not give your seatmates some food for their minds?

I carry three of my books along for each leg of my journey. Whoever sits next to me, or anywhere near me that looks like a business person gets a copy. Before long Im doing a book signing in the aisle and people are asking me for my card. One time on Southwest I got hired for an Arizona Association meeting before we landed. Another time, again on Southwest (believe it or not) I sat next to Wynona Judd and she asked me for information on my speaker coaching services. On a first class upgrade on United I sat next to a guy who is President and CEO of a 150 million dollar company. By the time we landed I was invited to his home and he offered to personally introduce me to the VP of all seven of his divisions. (Update: We just had dinner together in Los Angeles last week and we are supposed to get together again in April).

Dont have a book? Make a cassette tape to give out and follow up later. Its your choice. Complain about the food, or feed your information to your fellow passengers.

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Public Speaking - Bad Habits

You can have a pretty good presentation going and damage it severely with distracting habits. I've been around for a while, yet I still watch myself on videotape whenever I can to identify anything I may be doing unconsciously that may hurt my presentation.

Some problem areas you want to watch for are
Pacing back and forth
Jingling coins in your pocket
Jingling bracelets or jewelry
Playing with your hair (normally done by women)
Playing with objects (pointers, markers, etc.)
Holding on to the lectern or table for dear life
Rocking front-to-back or side-to-side
Staring
Standing rigidly in one place (this would surely create ZZZZZs)
Speaking with your head down or bowed
Frowning
Locking hands together or twiddling thumbs
Tapping your fingers
Pushing up your glasses

Almost all of these problems can be improved significantly and immediately. The simple realization that you are doing them will start the improvement process. To eliminate them completely may take a little extra effort or the help of a competent presentation coach.

Trick: Get in front of a mirror. Hold light dumbbells or heavy books in your hands. Start delivering your talk. When the books or dumbbells move, you have located real gestures. When you first try this in an effort to eliminate bad habits, you will notice that your mouth won't go. Don't worry. Eventually the bad habit will give up and your mouth will do just fine. Note: Use a heavy enough dumbbell so you don't smash yourself in the head when you try to adjust your
glasses.

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Public Speaking - How to Make a Point with Humor

One of the old saws of public speaking says that you should "Tell em what you're gonna tell em. Tell em. Then tell em what you told em." When you want to make a point during your presentation, you can use a similar formula. You tell em the point, illustrate the point, then tell em the point again. This formula, however, can seem boring and redundant if you don't spice it up a little.

One way to do it is to use humor. Here's the formula:

1. Make your point.

2. Illustrate your point (in our case with a humorous two-liner, but you could use props, humorous props, funny stories, serious stories, case studies, etc.)

3. Restate your point.

Here's an example where your point is "The Importance of Communication."
You say:

1. First make your point by saying, Accurate and clear communication is an important part of our everyday lives.

2. Then illustrate your point. In this case use a humorous two-liner. It's like the student pilot who was asked over the radio to state his altitude and location. He said, "I'm five feet nine and I'm in the left seat."

3. Then restate your point in a slightly different manner by saying, You can see how what we may think is clear communication could be interpreted incorrectly especially when people are under pressure.

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Presentation Skills - The Length of the Program

The most important consideration in determining how long a technical seminar or workshop should be is the time required to cover the subject in sufficient detail. Some subjects require two or three days to tackle the complexities of a topic, while that amount of time would be superfluous in others. The burdens placed on the presenter(s) should also be considered. In a single-day program, chances are that one individual can handle the entire presentation. If it is longer, either more presenters will be necessary or more participant activity must be scheduled to ease the strain on the presenter.

In the world of speaking, there are speakers and there are trainers, and the two differ greatly in their content, styles, and goals. Trainers are far more concerned with the accuracy and relevance of the material content than a speaker will ever be and yet, they must be as entertaining and motivating as any other. Technical trainers can seldom count on standing ovations, peals of laughter, or thunderous applause. What you can count on is being followed to the restroom and being asked questions, people standing around waiting to tell you of their experiences on the same topic, and serious questions about the topic you just presented.

Evaluations of trainers by attendees are usually sparse as well. Most trainers have discovered that the attendees have their own agenda when they arrive and their acceptance and satisfaction is totally dependent upon whether or not you live up to those preconceived expectations, whether they are a part of the program or not.

Evaluations will most often be extremely critical of facilities and temperature and will reflect learners' representations of what they think the trainer should be, irrespective of the material content.

Nevertheless, technical training can be one of the most rewarding of all presentations because you may have the opportunity to observe the participants taking "hard skills" with them that they can apply immediately to make their lives and businesses a fuller and richer medium for their personal growth and happiness.

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Public Speaking - Caricature

When certain prominent features of something or someone are highlighted and other features are diminished, that is called caricature. Studies have found that it is easier to identify a political leader from a caricature than from a real photograph. This is actually a special form of exaggeration. You can use caricatures of yourself in your own promotional material or in your programs to make fun of yourself. You can do the same thing to make fun of your competitors or your competitor's products by amplifying whatever feature you want to emphasize.

Caricature artists are not too hard to locate. Many times you can find them by looking in the yellow pages under the categories of entertainment or party planning because they frequently
perform at parties.

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Public Speaking: Creating a Favorable Learning Situation

With the world of technology changing at such a rapid pace, it's not surprising that more and more presentations are being geared towards the technological side of learning, or the "hard skills" types of programs. The nature and content of these programs has to be different from the "soft skills" or motivational programs because the needs and the expectations of the audience are different. The attendees look upon the time spent as a learning investment. They expect high content to be delivered in an understandable and usable manner during the allocated times.

Humor, as an end in itself, will not be appreciated. It's best to use humor that is specific to the discipline and that will probably only be understood and/or appreciated by the attendees who have an intimate knowledge of the topic. (General humor will be considered as time wasting and not relevant to the topic.) Stories are another good type of humor. Stories to which the attendees can directly relate, and ones that demonstrate practical methodologies of what to do
or what to avoid, will assist the attendees in empathizing with the information being taught. On the other hand, typical "shaggy dog" stories and tales that would normally bring the audience to tears or result in a standing ovation will fall flat when addressing a technical audience.

Most technical session attendees are used to receiving information through a highly structured and organized means. They generally appreciate a bulleted outline of what is to be covered and expect the presenter to cover all of the points promised in a timely and expeditious manner. Time will become critical because of the volume of information to be delivered without leaving out anything important.

Always evaluate your material for flow and time allocation and remember that the audience has no idea of what you leave out, as long as you address each point promised to some degree.

If you are concerned about having too much material for the time allocated, seriously consider creating a detailed handout with all of the relevant information and only address the spots of critical concern in the presentation. Technical audiences always appreciate having a written document with lots of details that they can refer to later.

As with every other learning situation, your presentation should be geared to the needs of the participants. The most important characteristic to consider for a one-to-three-hour session is the demographics of your participants. Demographics are not just age, sex, income, and education, although these may be very important to know. You also want to know the learners' level of knowledge about the subject, their problems and needs, and how they are going to use the information you are giving them.

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Public Speaking - Sexist Language

The use of sexist language is something you must also be careful to avoid in order to be in tune with today's society. There is an excellent section about this topic in the book Speak Like a Pro by Margaret Bedrosian. A salesman is now a salesperson. A fireman is now a firefighter. You don't look for a chairman for a meeting, you look for someone to chair the meeting or a chairperson.

You must be very careful in your use of humor in these sensitive times. People may fixate on one wrong word and tune you out and/or be offended. You may personally feel that using a little off-color joke once in awhile is OK, or you may think that no harm is done in using sexist language whenever you feel like it. I can assure you that you are wrong when it comes to professional presentations. Do whatever you want with your friends, but if you persist in any of these behaviors you will be labeled as "out-of-touch" and largely unpromotable in virtually every major corporation.

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Public Speaking Presentations - Multimedia

In the good old days (translates to last year), multimedia meant using several different media in the same presentation. You might be using overheads and slides on different screens or you might be using several slide projectors on the same screen with a tape recorder providing music or narration. Now the term multimedia carries a whole new meaning. In present day terms, multimedia means you are using a computer-controlled presentation that may include full color, sound, video, graphics, animation, and text.

Computer-based presentations can be great, although they are definitely risky, just like any other presentation that relies heavily on equipment. The risk is lowered if you are really good at
quick computer trouble-shooting and if you are the only one using the equipment. Keep in mind that computers can help you become a better presenter than you are now, but they will not make you a good presenter in the first place. In fact, they might just show up how bad you are if you rely on them too heavily.

My advice is to have a well thought out and rehearsed backup plan in case of a malfunction. I attended a trade show not too long ago where a major vendor of multimedia software was doing a demonstration. They had a malfunction and had no backup plan. The audience members were walking out and laughing at them. How embarrassing!

Don't let that happen to you. Computer software and hardware change very rapidly. To keep up with the latest multimedia innovations check the computer section of your local newsstand and/or visit one of the larger computer superstores.

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Public Speaking - He Tripped Me!

And now for the ultimate audience gag. Drum roll, please. I do an old, old banquet gag that I recycled for new speaking gigs. I call it Cuss Your Lunch which stands for Cuss(tomer) Service Your Lunch.

Through my practical joke company, I have done literally hundreds of performances as the Clumsy Waiter at banquets, luncheons, and wedding receptions. These performances were done mainly for fun and they are not messy unless, of course, you want them to be. When I started speaking more and more to business audiences I wanted to find a way to incorporate this outrageous routine.

Now Cuss Your Lunch is a live training session on customer service, but the participants don't know it. I get the company to arrange an appreciation luncheon for the managers or employees of the customer service division. I am planted as the waiter at the function. The participants really feel what it is like to get rotten service. There are two ways this can end. One way is to prat fall to the floor and make a really big commotion. I claim that some innocent attendee tripped me. The banquet manager or head waiter then comes in and fires me.

Then I reveal the joke and immediately go into a customer service presentation based on what they have just experienced. The other way to end this presentation takes more time and effort, but is more fun. In this case, I storm out of the room after being fired. I immediately go somewhere and change into a spiffy suit. I change my hairstyle, take off my glasses and return to the meeting as the guest speaker whose plane was late. The looks on the participant's faces
are something you have to see to believe.

Don't be afraid to have fun with an audience. Gags are a good way to do it and they can really help you drive home your point too.

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