Public Speaking - Numbers

Most businesses have numerous uses for numbers, both written and oral. Again, some numbers are funnier and more interesting than others. A number like zero has other names that are funny that aren't even numbers.

Goose egg, nada, nil, zip and zilch are all funny ways to express the number zero. Even zero is funnier than the word none. Although none is funny when you talk about the two chances of a hostile takeover as slim and none. A hundred dollar bill is a C-Note, a five-dollar bill is a fin. If someone is outrageously rich, they could be a zillionaire.

If you want to exaggerate a little bit, or if you have some tough news to deliver that involves numbers, add a touch of levity to help soothe the sting.

One common rule of humor that does not apply to numbers is brevity. In all other types of humor you should conserve the number of words you use. Normally you want to use the fewest words possible to get to the punch line. When using numbers in a presentation, pronounce them using the longest version possible. This gives them more punch. The digits 1,500 should be recited as one thousand five hundred, not fifteen hundred. The time of 8:15 should be a quarter past eight, not eight fifteen. 6'2" should be six feet two inches not six-two.

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Public Speaking - Remove the Lectern

To get started in your efforts to involve the audience I recommend that you take a big axe with you to each one of your presentations and chop the lectern into tiny little pieces. That way you won't be tempted to stand behind it. The behind-the lectern speaker is quickly going the way of the dinosaur.

Make every attempt possible to avoid delivering your information from behind a lectern (unless protocol and/or logistics absolutely demand that you do). To be most effective, you want to eliminate any barriers between you and the audience. If they can see you, and if you are physically close to them, they will have a greater rapport with you. They will be able to notice your facial expressions and body language much better than if you have a physical barrier in between. A friend of mine who is a top-notch humorist was asked to do his presentation in a room that had a dance floor between him and the audience.

Needless to say the presentation suffered immensely.

There are many more things to consider for better presentations.

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Tom Antion's Stage Fright Strategies

Symptoms of Stage fright

Dry mouth.

Tight throat.

Sweaty hands.

Cold hands.

Shaky hands.

Give me a hand (Oops, I couldn't resist).

Nausea.

Fast pulse.

Shaky knees.

Trembling lips.

Any out-of-the-ordinary outward or inward feeling or manifestation of a
feeling occurring before, or during, the beginning of a presentation (Wow! What a dry mouthful!).

Here are some easy to implement strategies for reducing your stage fright. Not everyone reacts the same and there is no universal fix. Don't try to use all these fixes at once. Pick out items from this list and try them out until you find the right combination for you.


Visualization strategies that can be used anytime

Concentrate on how good you are.

Pretend you are just chatting with a group of friends.

Close your eyes and imagine the audience listening, laughing, and
applauding.

Remember happy moments from your past.

Think about your love for and desire to help the audience.

Picture the audience in their underwear.


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Why Humor in a Presentation Works

YOU WILL BE ASKED BACK. If you succeed in your original purpose for making your presentation, you may be asked back. If you also make the audience feel really good by entertaining them at the same time, your chances of being asked back will be much higher.

YOU WILL GET HIGHER EVALUATIONS OR MORE SALES. If you make the audience feel good, they will like you better and reflect that in your evaluation scores or buy more and more often from you.

YOU WILL MAKE MORE MONEY. If you are a professional presenter, you will be booked more and your fees will rise. If you present as part of your job, then read the next item carefully.
YOU WILL BE MORE PROMOTABLE. Having and conveying a sense of humor is on virtually everyone's list of top leadership skills. A humorous and engaging presentation style will push you up the ladder where good communications skills are a
must.

IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR POPES AND PRESIDENTS, IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. I don't know about the pope, but I do know that all modern-day presidents are coached extensively on the use of appropriate humor for many of the reasons stated above.

YOU WILL MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY. This is my favorite benefit. I get great satisfaction from knowing that I have brightened someone else's life. I had an executive come up to me after one of my humor seminars and say, "You opened up a whole new world for me." I almost cried right on the spot. I'll never forget it.

The Ultimate Guide to Public Speaking Success

Public Speaking: Room Blackouts

If you want to make a spectacular impression on a low budget, room blackouts are a great technique.

I use them in two ways.
1. If I want the audience to concentrate on a recorded audio tape and
2. when I want an awesome closing.

Let's say I wanted the audience to listen to a recording of the speech where John Fitzgerald Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Or maybe the "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King would be appropriate. I would gradually bring the lights down as I was introducing the audio clips. I would either project a picture of JFK, or MLK if I had the capability, or I would totally darken the room (except for the red exit signs, or whatever lights are mandatory for emergencies).

When you take away the visual clues (or distractions) the audience has, you help them totally focus on the audio.

THIS CLOSING REALLY ROCKS
When I'm doing a rip roaring presentation that demands a spectacular close, this is what I do. (Note: I DON'T do this if I'm planning a table rush to buy my products.)

I hand out (usually you need helpers to do this quickly) some sort of chemical glow product. I give the audience instructions on what we're going to do. I tell the audience to stand up and I get them all swaying back and forth in unison while they're holding they glow sticks over their heads. Then I bring the lights down and play some singalong song or Karoke song where I have made up custom words for their group.

This is one heck of a closing! When the song is finished I say "thank you for having me." The lights start to come up while they are applauding and I accidentally on purpose get a standing ovation. hahahhaha


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Great Presentations - Movement and Appearance

Edward T. Hall, the noted social anthropologist, claims 60 percent of all communication is nonverbal. Communication analyst Albert Mehrabian says we are perceived in three ways: 7 percent verbally, 38 percent vocally, and a full 55 percent visually, including gestures, posture, stride, facial expressions, movement, dress, and eye contact. These guys undoubtedly know more about it than I do. What I want you to learn is that gestures and body language can be used to help tell your story without using additional words, they can make you feel better, and they can make your audience like you more.

Gestures include all physical activity before, during, and after your talk. A gesture can be just about anything. It could be a hand on the hip, a wrinkled brow, a raise of the eyebrows, or leaning against the lectern. In fact, communications expert Mario Pei estimates that humans can display up to 700,000 different physical signs. I'll start numbering them now: 1) eyelash curl, 2) fingernail growth, 3) double chin wiggle . . . Of course, I'm kidding, but that is an awful lot of movement to keep track of, don't you think?

According to Dorothy Leeds in her book PowerSpeak, "Audiences are making their hard-to-shake first impressions as you are setting up, waiting to be introduced, and walking to the platform to begin your speech." When you walk into the room you should be smiling, upbeat, and at least appearing to be calm. You want them to be in fun, don't you?

If I had to pick one technique in this whole book for you to master, this would be it: smile.You can get more (s)mileage out of this simple facial gesture than any one of the more than 250,000 of which you are capable. This ultimate gesture, that is recognized all over the world, projects warmth and the message that friendship is possible.

Better presentations start right here...

Public Speaking - Some Attention-Gaining Devices

* Humor, of course
* Props
* Stories
* Voice inflection
* Stage movement
* Asking questions of the audience
* Showing visuals
* Playing music
* Gesturing
* Using quotations
* Reading or reciting poetry

Effective NO ZZZZZs presenters use attention-getting techniques spaced throughout their presentation to keep the audience's interest up. Each of these is discussed in detail throughout this book. The great sales and motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, hits the audience like clockwork with a joke or story every seven to nine minutes. I even shorten that more to between six and eight minutes for high content talks and several times per minute for mostly humorous talks.

So, my response to the original question "When should I use humor in a presentation?" is at the beginning, the middle and the end, or anywhere you want a peak on your intensity wave. Use humor throughout your presentation and space it at intervals to provide a change of pace and to reemphasize your message in a new and interesting way.

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Presenation Tips - Ethnic Expressions Are Funny Only If You Are Ethnic

Another well-known humorist, Doc Blakely, does a dialect bit that has been very successful, but he is extremely good at it. When using dialects, if you are not good at the particular dialect, it appears you are mocking the ethnic group to which it belongs.

There are lots of funny ethnic sayings and words. Try to resist using them unless you are making fun of your own background. In a business setting, it is much too risky to joke about another person's race, religion, or dialect.

If you are Polish, it may be OK to tell a Polish joke now and then. If you are Jewish, you are the only one who really knows about matzo balls, schmatas and schnooks. Remember both Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butts and Secretary of the Interior James Watt were forced to resign because of "Jokes that were deemed insensitive and insulting to minorities." If you want to use ethnic humor, use Outer Slobovia or some other OBVIOUSLY comic, nonexistent country in your jokes.

You certainly cannot get away with any profanity or off-color (blue humor) jokes in a professional presentation. The most serious consequence I ever heard of with regard to using off-color humor was reported in the July 7, 1996 issue of the Washington Post. It seems that Captain Ernie Blanchard, a career military man with a virtually perfect record and no apparent emotional problems, committed suicide after telling a dozen or so dirty jokes at a Coast Guard Academy dinner in 1995. The initial investigation, which apparently drove him to his end, concluded that telling those jokes to 117 people constituted willful sexual harassment. This is obviously an extreme case, but it is representative of a politically correct atmosphere that must never be forgotten when you are the one at the microphone.

Along the same lines, you will never be invited back to speak if you use any jokes that make fun of a person's disability. Jokes on the subjects of stuttering, lisping, or amputees will no longer be tolerated and the consequences to your career can be devastating.

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Effective Presentations - Organization

Being able to find humor, stories, quotes and other speech material when you need it is very important. It is very frustrating to know you have a piece of material, but you can't find it. Some type of system of organizing all this material is essential to efficient preparation.

A file and cross-reference system will help you keep track of your material. I use both a computer and hard copy filing system. Both have advantages, so don't worry if you don't have a computer.

On the computer I keep separate files for all the different topics I cover in my presentations and also for the different parts and categories of speeches like Response to Introduction and Openings. You can also do this with three-by-five cards or in a regular file box or cabinet. I make files for categories of specialty humor like roasts and toasts and I also make files for the different parts of a talk like response to introduction, openings, and closings. When I'm preparing a talk, all I have to do is open the file on that topic and pick the information I want to use. I copy this material to another file named for the group to which I'm speaking.

Some information in my topic files may be duplicated in other topic files. This is basic cross-referencing. For instance, one of my signature stories about my dog, Freeway, makes several different points. It can be used as a customer service story, to illustrate going the extra mile, reacting under pressure, or thinking quickly. Since it is a story involving an animal, it could be told to a group of animal lovers. Consequently, this story shows up in many of my topic files.

Effective presentations are easier than you think!

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