Missoula-Public-Speaking-Tips: August 2011

What Makes a Great Professional Speaker?

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There a literally millions of people all around the world that have benefited from a membership in a Toastmasters club, and we trust that you will also consider visiting our club and joining. Visit our site at Shootin The Bull

You will find that Toastmasters is a wonderful place to not just learn to speak but to also make friends and meet new people. As one of the top Networking Organizations in the world it is a great place to meet other professionals and local people that want to become better speakers. Also you will find that Toastmasters supportive atmosphere assists even further in making new friends easily. I have met many people through Toastmasters, including many people I might not have otherwise had the chance to meet.

Join Us any Tuesday at Noon -Lunch Time for a 1 hour get together at the Elk Foundation on Grant Creek. Shootin' The Bull Toastmasters Club
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People think that you have to have all this skill and talent to become a professional speaker, however, there are other important factors that determine your success. Technically, you can say and do all the right things. You can have the right information and present it in an organized format, but your true success will be found in your ability to connect with your audience rather than presenting a speech well. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care!

Here are your real tools that you'll need to have that will spur you on to success! Making a mistake at the podium doesn't mean failure. Your biggest mistake is not reaching your audience with the message you have!

1. Your attitude speaks through and through. Why are you presenting this information? Are you here because it's a job requirement or a way to make money? The attitude you take concerning the material you present will show through in your presentation.

2. Your passion communicates more than you'll ever say! Passion brings a professional speaker's material to life for their audience. Your audience will know if you are passionate about what you're speaking about or not. Moreover, they will need to draw on your passion to move them into taking action.

3. Your ability to empathize with the needs and wants of your audience will make you a success! You must have an ability to respond in a split second to the needs of your audience. In order to do this, you have to start interacting with your audience to get a feel for where their hearts and minds are concerning your message. You'll have to think quickly on your feet and be able to adjust your message and you'll have to become sensitive to "feeling" out your audience.

4. Your ability to make your message easy to understand and implement will help you reach more people! The easier your solution is, the easier it will be for your audience to take the action you're recommending in your presentation.

5. Your physical energy communicates the passion and life in your message. Excitement is contagious. So is monotony. You've got to get your audience excited about what you'll be presenting. This requires having the physical energy to rev up your audience as you speak excitedly, move about the room excitedly and present your material in an exciting manner.

6. You must love in order to become a success. This is the heart and soul of true charisma. A general love for what you do, the topics you speak on and the people you're speaking to are needed elements to your speaking career. This love will pass on even when you are talking about the latest theory in quantum mechanics!

These little talked about characteristics will be the true foundation of your success! More than technical skill, these soft skills are the real tools you'll need to get bigger paid speaking jobs. These tools are the elements that will draw your audience to you. If you take the time to work on building these skills, your success will be inevitable.

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Microphone Technique

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Although it sounds strange to you, to hear your own voice over the P.A, in fact it doesn’t sound any different to the audience than if you were talking to them in normal conversation.

The trick here is to be Yourself, if you haven’t got the skill to project a warm friendly personality at the functions where ice breaking is required then being an entertainer isn’t for you. The trick is to find a balance, most people would simply hire the gear - saving around 50% of a D.J’s booking fee and throw a NOW Cd on - if human input and personality wasn’t important to them. At some functions, if they pay for an entertainer and get a human jukebox who doesn’t own a mic and just sits there playing music then they occasionally feel cheated!.

I can’t stress the “BE YOURSELF”, advice enough, don’t put on a radio style zany DJ voice - that will sound false and doesn’t fool anybody. If you are lucky enough to have a D.J training you, or are a young person helping an older mentor D.J then DON’T be tempted to become a clone of him or her. Adopt your own mic style (not a false voice), use your own tag lines but don’t rely on the same cliche’s 20 or 30 times a night - this becomes boring and predictable.

Don’t rely on “that was”, “This is” introductions all night. At some functions going out with a Radio Mic and creating banter with your audience is a great way to break the ice at the beginning of difficult, non formal functions - and a good way of enouraging them onto the dancefloor early on. You can relax the mic work and the frquency of them - once the dancefloor is filling.

Of course there are always going to be functions where you need more mic work than the last, and other functions where it is going to be little mic use, but the key is to develop a style and strength and confidence in your mic working ability and not to rely on non stop music alone to do the work for you.

Just be yourself, and talk normally into the microphone. The thing to work on is to speak confidentally and clearly and try to pace yourself. Speaking too fast will make what you are saying sound garbled, speaking too slow will make you sound like you are addressing a bunch of village idiots . Pretty soon, with a little time and practice you’ll develop your own individual skill and style and that is the most important aspect, don’t try to copy anybody else or put on a different voice, it will sound false and make learning and maintaining the technique a lot more difficult.

If being a comedian is not you, then avoid the jokes unless you are good at this sort of thing , forced comedy can sound false and you may find yourself laughing alone, after all the Client has booked a Mobile Disco and not a stand up comedian!. One of the best pieces of advice I was given my the D.J who trained me, was to “Stick at doing what you are good at and have been booked for, and if in any doubt then leave it out”.

Spontaneous one liners are another matter, if something amusing happens, then share it - use the mic to get requests, make a fuss over other people celebrating birthdays / anniversaries - people like to have their 30 seconds of glory and hearing their name mentioned, over the mic

My advice to those nervous about public speaking for the first time, is not to be frightened of the mic or avoid using one - its your closest and most useful ally, at all functions. Don’t talk all over the track, learn to pace yourself over the outro of the previous track and any intro of the next track - don’t gabble - talk clearly into the microphone as if you were talking to a friend. With time you should be able to familiarise yourself with how themore popular tracks end and finish, this way you can talk upto the vocal, similar to how they do on the radio - stopping your banter at the moment the vocal on the next track starts. Don’t rush to perfect this or gabble to do so, it all comes with time and practice. Keep it simple to start off with.

Start with the easy stuff first, just introducing tracks, and buffet announcements. Once you’ve built up a bit of confidence, you’ll move on from the ‘That was….. this is….’ routine. Try and include your audience, invite requests, make them feel welcome. Even if you are having a difficult gig don’t take it out on the audience and try and look like you are enjoying yourself, even if it’s not going to plan. Don’t worry about making mistakes on the Mic, we all do from time to time, but don’t draw attention to it, or dwell on it it’ll just make it worse - besides making mistakes shows that you are human and not a pre-programmed jukebox

Keep key information on the gig, such as the Bride & Grooms’ names, Best Man Name etc on a piece of paper on the mixer, so that you can casually glance down if you have a sudden memory blank, but don’t write your links down as a speech, otherwise it will sound like you are reading from a script and less natural.

Remember that once the dancefloor is full, you can ease off the mic a little, but keep doing the requests and don’t forget that it exists. Learn to find the balance, too much talking can bore the pants of your audience, too little mic work can make people think that you aren’t earning your keep!. There are functions where you have a full Dancefloor and it would be obtrusive to chat all over the music when people want to dance, equally there are more formal functions where there isn’t the room or inclination to dance, and so a bit of light hearted banter to break the ice and the empathsis on the entertainment side of being a DJ is required rather than just continuous music

All of this will take some time, don’t expect to develop a mic technique overnight just take it one gig at a time.

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Using Humor in Your Professional Speaking Gig

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If using humor in your professional speaking presentation, understand this. People will pay more to be entertained than they will to be informed. Look around you and you will see that the top industry is the entertainment industry. Encompassing sports events, comic acts, movies, television and music, the entertainment industry steadily received trillions of dollars worldwide.

Humor accomplishes many things in your presentation. Here are some things that humor can do for you!

1. Humor helps you connect with your audience. Make yourself more relatable with your audience as they begin to see that it's not all about the information. Humor draws your audience to you because people are naturally drawn to positive things.

2. Humor makes you more approachable and likeable as a speaker. Your audience will see you as being more down to earth and again, relatable.

3. Humor creates interest in your topic as well as yourself. Humor just makes things interesting to follow. People like to laugh.

4. Humor helps to keep the attention of your audience. Your audience tunes out because they get lost in your presentation. By using humor, it'll be harder for your audience to tune out because they will want to hear your humorous story.

5. Humor strengthens point and ideas you want to highlight in your presentation. Funny stories are memorable and can strengthen the point of your message. Television sitcoms are famous for taking real life situations and presenting them in a humorous fashion.

6. Humor removes hostility in your presentation. If there were any ill feelings towards you or your message, humor lightens the mood of your audiences and disarms negative emotions.

7. Humor helps connects pieces of information in your topic. Work humor into the transition points of your presentation. In that way they will be the bridge that connects the points of your message together.

8. Humor helps paint mental images in the minds of your audience. Self-effacing humor is often relatable to your audience because they can see themselves having those same situations.

9. Humor makes your presentation more memorable. People remember when they laugh. They'll remember funny stories or funny instance during your presentation.

10. Humor lightens a heavy topic. People can only take so much of heavy topics. You don't want to make your audience feel depressed even if your topic discusses a very grave matter.

11. Humor can bring in better evaluations and more product sales. Humor warms your audience up to you. In doing so, your audience will be more open to purchasing your back of the room products as well as give you a better review.

12. Humor will make people happy. People want to enjoy your seminar. They want to have a good time and they want to be happy. Humor helps you achieve that.

Humor can add so much variety to an otherwise dull, information only presentation. Helping to connect you with your audience, humor is a great addition that can bring you better speaker reviews and increased revenue. Add some spice to your message by incorporating humor!

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Speak With a Relaxed Body and Mind

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Fear of public speaking is No.1. Death is No.4. So most people would rather get a root canal and pay their taxes than speak in front of an audience!

1. Sure you have catecholamine; all speakers do (including Sir Winston Churchill and Presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan). These are the chemicals that make you sweat, make your heart beat fast, and make your hands shake. Get rid of those chemical and psychological reactions by becoming message-centered and audience-centered, not self-centered.

2. Replace fear and negative noise with positive affirmations. Create new beliefs that nurture you and support you with new ways of thinking. The New Adult You! For example, I am well prepared, and the audience wants me to succeed.

3. Do a quiet meditation, visualization, or exercise before you speak. Breathe deeply. Deep breathing sends a message to your brain that you have nothing to fear. It calms you down.

4. Who cares if you’re nervous? Researchers have found that most people report noticing little or no anxiety in a speaker. If you are thoroughly prepared, your internal nervousness seldom shows. Prepare 150%.

5. The Coach Says... Practice in front of your mirror. Practice in the car. If you can concentrate while driving, you will be able to pull what you need from your unconscious when you are in front of the group. Make your points sound spontaneous and conversational.

6. Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse. Talk out loud, and walk around while you practice. Use the same physical energy you plan to use on the day of your presentation.

7. Exercise is antidote to stress. Arrive early and take a brisk walk for at least five minutes. If it is raining or snowing outside, you can still do some body stretches.

8. Abstain from caffeine and alcohol before you speak. You don’t need more jitters. Always wear your favorite outfit and use attractive colors. Women, go simple on the jewelry. Avoid too much black and white.

9. The Coach Says... Most of all; enjoy yourself and have a fun. SMILE. After all, aren’t you glad to be there? The sign of a mature adult is that you are not taking yourself too seriously

10. For trembling hands, place your hand son the side of your chair and count to 10 as you try to lift the seat. This is an isometric exercise that works and nobody will notice you doing it.

11. Don’t be perfect. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. No one is perfect in real life. Get the butterflies in your stomach to fly in formation. That’s who you convert your stress into speaking power!

12. Reduce your nervousness by taking several deep breaths immediately before you’re introduced. And for you chocoholics, eat some chocolate to relax your vocal chords.

13. If you experience dry mouth, chew your tongue to increase saliva flow. Singers do this. Close your lips and bite down on the entire surface. Always have a glass of tepid (not cold) water nearby.

14. Focus on a friendly face in the audience. Pretend you are having a conversation, rather than giving a speech. Just be yourself.

15. Here is a vocal warm-up exercise used at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Say, PaPaPaPa, BaBaBaBa, TaTaTaTa, DaDaDaDa, KaKaKaKa, GaGaGaGa. Then do it backwards. (Courtesy of Robert and Rande Gedaliah)

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What Makes a Good Speaker?

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When people hear that I owned a national, professional speakers bureau for 13 years, they often ask me, who are the best speakers and why? What follows are some of the characteristics of a very successful speaker who is often a highly paid speaker.

‘Tell’ em what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell’ em what you told them.”

1.They arrive early and check out the sound system and introduce themselves to audience members during the networking time.

2.They speak on a subject that their audience needs to hear. And they use words and body language that shows their passion and authenticity.

3.They connect with their audience in the first few minutes with a riveting story, a funny incident, a startling statement or perhaps a poem. They know how to make their opening remarks relate to the material that follows.

4. They have no fear. They don’t only say what the audience wants to hear, but what they NEED to hear. In other words, their remarks may raise some eyebrows. They give their audiences some fresh ideas.

5.They never make more than 3-4 points in their speech. They don’t feel the need to tell an audience everything they know. No one can retain it all. For each major point they tell an illustrative story. A good story evokes emotion and offers a lesson. The audience members are then only a step away from their own story.

6. They make great eye contact and make each person feel attended to. This makes them appear to be more heartfelt and really present for their audience.

7. Before closing, they summarize and reiterate their major points. They end with an inspiring story and a call to action. They hold the audience accountable – to take some action in the next few days, weeks.

8.They don’t talk too long. They know how much time they have been assigned and they don’t exceed it. 9.They rehearse their speech a few times but never sound canned. They NEVER read their speech verbatim.

10.All successful speakers market themselves. They all promote themselves. And they all Network. They are a model of excellence. And you can be too!

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Top 7 Ways to Succeed in the Business of Speaking

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How attractive are you as a speaker? Not, your looks, but your consistent ability to provide a quality presentation, attract clients, and be irresistibly attractive to meeting planners and speaker bureaus? Below are some useful tips that I learned while owning a national, professional speakers bureau for 13 years.

1. Presentation – do you have something interesting, inspiring, and useful to share with audiences? Be mindful of your voice (keep it deep and low pitched), your personality and attitude (positive), your tone (soft, loud. Encouraging as needed), your style, your vocabulary.

2. Connection – how quickly do you get to the core of your audience’s problems and challenges? Skip what is between their ears and go straight to their hearts.

3. Passion – do you love what you do? Develop a niche or specialty that you truly enjoy … and are good at.

4. Network – enhance your speaking career by networking with 50 or more other speakers. They become your referral sources. Join the National Speakers Association – a 4,000 member organization that holds conferences and has local chapters to help you with your marketing skills and networking. Call 480-968-2552 (Arizona)

5. Products – write a book, booklet(s), create audio tapes, video tapes, CD/ROM. Having products will catapult your speaking career and make you more valuable to your clients. This “passive” income is like having frosting on the cake.

6. Value added – become known as a value added speaker. Provide handouts, attend the cocktail reception before your program, stay after your speech, offer follow-up teleclasses, offer your consulting services, be a facilitator.

7. Hire a Coach – The Olympic Games remind us that a world-class athlete is surrounded by a number of people whose function is to keep him/her on track. No serious athlete or professional speaker would expect to progress very far without a COACH.

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Ten Sources of Income in Professional Speaking

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One of the best features of having a career in professional speaking is that you can benefit from multiple streams of income. You don't only have to rely on your paid public speaking career to bring in the cash. You can sell other products and services. You can work other areas that require using professional speakers. The key is to leverage your skills and talent to produce an ongoing stream of income that can withstand the drought seasons in your public speaking career.

1. Sell your knowledge via books and articles. You can self-publish for maximum profit or you can seek out a publisher and get paid royalties. Your articles can be highly sought after by trade publications especially if you are a well-noted person in the industry.

2. Sell your knowledge via a training system package. Create a training system using CDs, DVDs, a training manual and any other parts that you'll need. Package the system and sell it for a profit.

3. Get sponsored by a company. Get other companies to sponsor your speaking fee for being mentioned in your presentation. Sort of like advertising, this partnerships has ongoing, long-term benefits for every speaker that makes use of them.

4. Get paid as a speaker. As simplistic as this sounds, at some point in your career, you've got to get out and make an attempt to get higher paying gigs. Don't lose the "free" aspect of your career because they do go a long way. The more famous you get, doing good Samaritan efforts such as speaking for free make great news items for press releases.

5. Get paid as a speaker through speaker bureaus. Speaker bureaus help to connect speaker with meeting planners. Get listed with these bureaus to help promote your professional speaking career.

6. Get paid for the use of your "voice". Do voice overs or recorded speeches or advertisements as a source of income.

7. Get paid for telephone seminars. Many people are doing live webinars or telephone seminars in their businesses. Make contacts with people in the businesses that do them. It's the same thing as doing a speech except that it's on the telephone.

8. Get paid by creating a paying podcast. Podcasting is a new form of media that is quickly gaining popularity. Podcasting is like hosting your own speech online in an MP3 file so your audience can listen over and over again.

9. Work for training companies. Companies like Fred Pryor can be great interim sources of income that help you gain confidence as a speaker.

10. Get paid via your website. Add complementary affiliate programs as well as Google AdSense to your website or blog.

All of these sources of income represent ways to spread the word about your professional marketing career. Additionally, they also can represent ways that bring in income when your career isn't where you want it to be. You can start adding these sources one by one to your revenue stream. You'll see first hand the benefits that each one has as well as what works for your business and what doesn't.

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Join Us any Tuesday at Noon -Lunch Time for a 1 hour get together at the Elk Foundation on Grant Creek. We are the Lunchtime Missoula Toastmasters Club

How to Feel Confident in Front of Your Audience

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The fear of public speaking is one of the top fears that people have. Statistics show that over 41% of people have some level of fear or anxiety with regards to speaking in front of an audience. This fear often manifests as excessive sweating, sweaty palms, increased heart rates, blanking out (memory loss), nausea and sometimes difficulty breathing. There are many speakers who have been in front of audiences for years and they still deal with anxiety to some degree.

Since having this fear often has no bearing on whether you have to do a presentation or not, you'll have to find some ways to overcome your anxiety. The first step is to know that you are not alone and that you can prepare in advance so that the level of fear you feel is significantly reduced. Here are some other interesting statistics.

- Proper presentation and rehearsal of your message can reduce your fear by about 75%.

- Utilizing breathing techniques can reduce your anxiety by another 15%.

- Preparing for your mental state can reduce your fear the remaining 10%.

With these statistics in mind, here are some preparation tips to help you relax and reduce how you feel before going in front of your audience.

1. Know the environment you will speak in. Become familiar with the area by arriving early and walking around. Know how much space you have and the physical distance between you and your audience. As you acclimate yourself to your stage, you will find yourself feeling more comfortable.

2. Know your audience. You should find out who comprises your audience and do some research to find out their likes and dislikes. When they enter the room, greet them and take time to get to know some faces.

3. Know your presentation inside and out. If you don't know what you'll be presenting how can you expect yourself to feel fearless?

4. Implement breathing techniques to help you relax. Breathing techniques have been scientifically proven to invigorate the body and help you get rid of nervousness.

5. See yourself on stage before you actually get there. Replay images of your successful presentation in your mind. If you visual success, you'll find it.

6. Know that your audience wants you to succeed. Your success means they get what they want and need. If they've paid money to attend your presentation, they have a personal stake in your success. If you're providing training, they have a personal stake in your success. If you're delivering a graduation speech at a local university, the graduating class has a personal stake. Get the idea? Your audience wants you to succeed.

7. Don't draw attention to your being nervous. Many people won't even realize that you are nervous. Most times you will find that while you have your audience's attention, they are really thinking about themselves. They are absorbing what you say and processing that into how that relates to them.

8. Know that there is a purpose to your message. You have a message to deliver. Sometimes it's a cause that you are passionate about. Other times, it may be training that your company needs you to give.

Preparation is the key to your success! Through preparation, you can also overcome most if not all of the feelings of fear that you might have so prepare, prepare, prepare!

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History of Public Speaking

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There never has been in the history of the world a time when the spoken word has been equaled in value and importance by any other means of communication. If one traces the development of mankind from what he considers its earliest stage he will find that the wandering family of savages depended entirely upon what its members said to one another. A little later when a group of families made a clan or tribe the individuals still heard the commands of the leader, or in tribal council voiced their own opinions. The beginnings of poetry show us the bard who recited to his audiences. Drama, in all primitive societies a valuable spreader of knowledge, entertainment, and religion, is entirely oral. In so late and well organized communities as the city republics of Greece all matters were discussed in open assemblies of the rather small populations.

Every great epoch of the world's progress shows the supreme importance of speech upon human action individual and collective. In the Roman Forum were made speeches that affected the entire ancient world. Renaissance Italy, imperial Spain, unwieldy Russia, freedom loving England, revolutionary France, all experienced periods when the power of certain men to speak stirred other men into tempestuous action.

The history of the United States might almost be written as the continuous record of the influence of great speakers upon others. The colonists were led to concerted action by persuasive speeches. The Colonial Congresses and Constitutional Convention were dominated by powerful orators. The history of the slavery problem is mainly the story of famous speeches and debates. Most of the active representative Americans have been leaders because of their ability to impress their fellows by their power of expressing sentiments and enthusiasms which all would voice if they could. Presidents have been nominated and candidates elected because of this equipment.

During the Great War the millions of the world were as much concerned with what some of their leaders were saying as with what their other leaders were doing.

There is no aspect of modern life in which the spoken work is not supreme in importance. Representatives of the nations of the world deciding upon a peace treaty and deliberating upon a League of Nations sway and are swayed by speech. National assemblies from the strangely named new ones of infant nations to the century old organizations speak, and listen to speeches. In state legislatures, municipal councils, law courts, religious organizations, theaters, lodges, societies, boards of directors, stockholders' meetings, business discussions, classrooms, dinner parties, social functions, friendly calls in every human relationship where two people meet there is communication by means of speech.

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How to be a Public Speaking Star with The Use Of Computers

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No, you will not be giving a speech using computers. A computer cannot speak for you on stage. No, that is not what this topic is about. I am saying computers can help you get in touch, while helping you search for information. You can use computers to help you write your speech, as well as to help you research effectively, edit your work, check spelling and grammar and more. Computers can help you avoid wasting time; avoid never ending revising of your speech.

A well-written speech should be typed on a computer. This looks more professional than handwriting. Furthermore, speeches often require research, support, correspondence and so forth. If you have a computer you can e-mail important messages much faster than taking the message to the post office. Furthermore, you can use the powerful Search Engine to find out any information you are searching for on the speech topic.

How much better can it get. The Internet has a variety of newsletters, articles, headlines, magazines, newspaper and more that can put you in connection faster with important facts needed to finish your speech. Imagine spending hours at the local library compared to spending a few minutes online. After all, it’s all about saving time and working sufficiently.

The Internet also has libraries all over the world with available information that will help you with the research process. Imagine delivering a ground-breaking speech to the public that is saturated with facts you can verify. The libraries often have helpful information and some libraries will literally find the information for you if it is not available in their library. As you can see you are not only saving time you are finding more information than you can deal with while writing your speech online.

While writing your speech you can also use spell checkers, grammar checkers and other tools to edit your speech. Furthermore, you are going to love this, you can actually use the Thesaurus to discover new words that might enhance your speech. The computers also give you the ability to research languages, i.e. if you want to point out something in Spanish in your speech, you will have the tools to do so even if you can’t speak Spanish.

Not only this, the time you spend writing your speech off the computer will stress you out. If you write, research and prepare your speech on a computer it will save you time, energy and money.

One important issue you want to keep in mind while writing a ground-breaking speech on a computer is that the Worldwide Web of Chaos has a bunch of suckers that will drag you into their arena. Stay out! Set your goal and plan ahead of the game and include in plan avoiding getting into computer based nonsense that will hinder you while writing your speech.

One thing you want to avoid also while writing your speech is stopping and revising the sentences as you write them. This will only hinder your progress. Instead, write the darn report and read it after you finish. If it makes sense and sounds good, use it, if it sounds disturbing…then you can edit the sentences.

As a writer one of the best tools I have is the ability to finish my articles, read them aloud, which helps me to spot out areas that needed brushing or polishing. In the world of editing you could nick and pick through every word and sometimes never find sense in the words, however, a good edit will read the words and define them carefully before considering abolishing the sentences. Thus, they look at structure, characters, grammar, spelling and more to decide whether it fits.

Conclusion

Overall the point is by using a computer; you can save time which in turn will reduce stress for you.

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Join Us any Tuesday at Noon -Lunch Time for a 1 hour get together at the Elk Foundation on Grant Creek. We are the Lunchtime Missoula Toastmasters Club