Tom Antion's Ultimate Guide To Public Speaking

I Pay YOU to Use My New Book to Make a Fortune as a Professional Speaker

Tom Antion, a veteran of over 3000 paid speaking engagements, has written the ultimate guide to being a public speaker and he'll pay you to read it even if you are already a pro speaker, just for writing a great testimonial for the book.

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Hi! I’m Tom. And I want to share with you a powerful new resource that can change the lives of you and your family. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned pro, my “Ultimate Guide To Professional Speaking” e-book will change what you think you know about careers in public speaking and arm you with the strategies and techniques to make the most money possible!

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Public Speaking - Use Volunteers

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Tom Antion shows you the value of volunteers. Get volunteers by letting them attend the event for free.

Public Speaking - Cruise Ship Speaking

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Learn how to take wonderful cruises and become cruise enrichment
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Over 350 public and professional speaking videos.

Presentation Skills - Delivering the Punch Line

Most jokes are designed to end with a humorous climactic word or phrase. Here's an example from Larry Wilde's book Library of Laughter:

"I can't understand why you failed in business."

"Too much advertising."

"You never spent a cent in your life on advertising."

"That's true, but my competitor did."

Everything in the joke up to the comma after "That's true" is the setup of the joke. "But my competitor did" is the punch line. The punch line gets its name from the delivery technique used. You must punch the line out a little harder and with a slightly different voice than the rest of the joke. Lean into the microphone and say it louder and more clearly than you said the setup lines. If the audience does not hear the punch line, they are not going to laugh.

Just before the punch line you should pause slightly to emphasize and draw special attention to the line. After you deliver the line, don't utter another sound. Give the audience a chance to laugh. Words or phrases appended to the climax tend to delay or impede laughter. Until you get some experience, it is really tough to wait. Beginners tend to be afraid that no laughter will come, so they keep going. If you keep talking during this period, you will easily squelch the laughter. As your confidence builds, pausing will become easier and easier. Sometimes waiting the audience out will actually give them a cue to laugh even if the joke wasn't that great.

When you deliver your punch line, deliver it to one person and one person only. It doesn't matter how large the crowd is, you can look one person right in the eye and deliver your line.

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Public Speaking - Mental Involvement

One of the best ways to get your message to sink in is to get the audience thinking. This may sound elementary, but when you are up there spewing words at the audience, they may not have time to think. That is one reason pauses are so effective. They give the audience a chance to catch up and apply their own thoughts and value systems to what you are saying.

Asking questions of the audience is a great way to force them into the think mode. Has anyone ever been to Cleveland? A simple question like this zooms an individual audience member's mind to Cleveland if that person has been to Cleveland. If that person has not been to Cleveland, he or she will be tuned in mentally to see what you have to say about Cleveland. Have you ever had your keys in your hand one minute and the next minute they were gone? This question is the Has-this-ever-happened-to-you? variety. To corral the most audience members with a question like this, all you have to do is use a question that you know (from your pre-program research) will relate to most of the audience.

Johnny Carson before he retired, Jay Leno, and David Letterman all use questions about current news to grab their audiences mentally. They ask Did you read today or did you hear today about . . .? Johnny, Jay, and Dave know that if the audience has heard about the current event they will feel a common bond and if they haven't heard about it, they will listen more carefully. To make sure these talented and funny talk show hosts reach the largest portion of their respective audiences, they almost always explain or recap the news item before they make the joke. This gives those audience members that haven't heard about the current event a chance to get the humor.

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Public Speaking - Bombproofing

Are you afraid of bombing when you get up in front of a group? You don't have to be. With proper material selection, a few prepared comments in case of unexpected problems, and attention to time, worries about bombing can be virtually eliminated. Also remember one key point that Mike McKinley, past president of the National Speakers Association, told me: "The audience doesn't know your script. If you make a minor mistake, so what. Just keep on talking."

When you want to get a message across using humor, there is one overriding principle that will give you the greatest chance of success along with the least chance of failure. If you make all your attempts at humor relevant to your presentation, you get an automatic excuse from your mother if your humor is not all that funny. If your humor is received as funny, so much the better; but if it isn't, at least you made your point. Audiences will be much more tolerant if the humor ties into the subject at hand.

At social functions, relevance is not as critical as it is in serious business settings. If you stray off the main topic just for fun, it's no big deal. However, if you are still a little apprehensive about your humor skills in a presentation, the theory of relevance will always keep you safe.

Even if your delivery is not great at this point, the proper selection of material will carry you a long way. You must consider the nature of the audience, your personality and style, and the nature of the subject.

If you keep the above principle of relevance in mind, you should never have to suffer the embarrassment of your humor bombing out.

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Public Speaking - Stage Height

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Tom Antion talks about stage height and the limitations it can bring to your presentation.

Public Speaking - Use Product Related Stories

You can bring your product to life in the eyes of the client with stories. I learned
about this from the general manager at John Wanamaker Department store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I was doing a customer service presentation.

The manager was telling me about the time he and his wife were shopping for a handmade quilt to give as a wedding gift. They went to several different shops in eastern Pennsylvania. The people working at the shops were uninformed about and indifferent to the questions being posed about the history of the quilts. They eventually came upon a shop where the proprietor went into great detail about the person who actually made the quilt and about the origin of the material, thread, etc. Guess where the manager bought the quilt?

Of course, not all customers would want this level of detail. But the ones that do may be influenced to buy immediately if you are ready with this kind of information about your product, idea, or service.

You should also develop interesting or humorous stories or one-liners about how your product was used. For example when I was in high school, I used to sell matchbooks with advertising on them to small businesses. On a sales call I would put a used match in my wallet which I would pull out with great ceremony and say, "This is THE match that lit the bonfire we had just before winning the homecoming football game. You can have a match similar to this one." That would get the clients smiling. Then I sold them one or two cases of matchbooks.

Think up ways such as my one-liner to talk about your product, idea, or service to keep it in the customer's mind with a nonsales sales pitch. Product-related stories or jokes lend a favorable light to your product without increasing sales resistance.

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Public Speaking Humor - Stone the Speaker

Here's another gag I do when I really want to focus attention on an important point. Either before the program or at a break, I recruit audience members who are sitting near the front. I give each one a piece of crumpled paper and instruct them to throw it at me when they hear a certain word. Some presenters tell me that is the dumbest thing they ever heard and that they would never do it in a professional presentation. They say that until they understand the rationale.

Do you remember I said I pull this gag when I want to focus attention on an important point? Guess who is riveted on what I say until they hear the key word? Of course, all the recruits with the crumpled paper. Then, after they throw the paper and I make a big reaction, the rest of the crowd is totally focused in their effort to see what is going on. That is when I make my key point. I have virtually guaranteed the attention of each audience member.

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Presentations - What about Specific Industries?

If you are looking for stories and humor in a specific industry, you must work a little harder. Certain professions like medicine and law have many individual books, newsletters, and articles written about them. But if you are a plumbing executive, it is unlikely you could go down to your local bookstore and find a plumbing joke book.

Start a file right away for industry-specific information you find. A good place to start looking for information to fill this file would be in a trade journal for your industry. Almost every industry you can imagine has one or more associated trade journals. If you're looking for humor, sift through back issues to find humor you can use now. Virtually no one remembers cartoons and jokes more than a month or so. Watch for industry newsletters so you can extract usable material. Check your company bulletin boards regularly for funny signs and postings.

Call others in your industry to look for stories or incidents that would be of interest to your audience (remember to give credit). Collect everything you can collect that is interesting and industry specific and soon you will have the best collection around.

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