Don’t skimp on practice if you want to be great!
In this day and age it seems like everybody is looking for the quick fix without any effort. Whether it’s making money, getting fit, loosing weight or becoming a celebrity. Andit seems to me that this obsession for instant success is supported and encouraged by adverts for all sorts of products both online and offline…
Read MoreThe importance of energy:
When speaking at a conference one shouldn’t underestimate the importance of energy as part of your delivery. I recall the advice given to me when I strated my sales career many years ago. Always be an inch more enthusiastic than your customer. How can you expect anyone to be enthusiastic about your product, service or…
Read MoreAn interesting presentation from TED – Malcolm Gladwell
One of the joys that the internet has brought to the world of public speaking is the abilityt to watch and replay some of the worlds best (and worst!) speakers online wherever you are in the world. My favourite site for this is TED (www.ted.com). The speakers on TED vary from good to outstanding in…
Read MoreSpeech writing tips – How many words in a speech?
When I first started writing speeches, I struggled to know how many words to write for a speech of a given length. The only way I would know was to rehearse the speech and time how long it lasted. I have since learned that I typically speak at an average of 80-100 words per minute…
Read MoreMatch the pace to your content – Changing gear in a speech or presentation
I was particularly impressed with the way Rich matched his energy and pace of delivery to the story he was telling. At the start his pace was slow and measured as he described the rather boring car journey where he was too small to see much out of the car window but clouds. Then, when he arrived at his gran’s the pace picked up dramatically as he described zooming into her house (an Aladdin’s cave for a five year old boy!) with his arms outstretched behind him pretending to be a plane. The pace stayed high as he described how he explored and played and then slowed a little as he started to describe the other family members present. The pace slowed further as he brought us up to the present day and how things had changed. How his granny wasn’t as energetic as she had been, how the food wasn’t as home cooked as it had been and so on. This “gear change”change of pace brought a poignancy and a sense of reflection to this speech that worked beautifully and lead us up nicely to Rich’s take away message.
Read MoreA different way to look at your speech – Wordle.net
A good friend of mine and fellow trainer Stella Collins drew my attention to this unusual new application which creates a “word cloud” from any web page or piece of text. The frequency with which the words appear in your text determines how large they appear in the Wordle image. Apart from creating interesting graphics,…
Read MoreSpeechwriting lessons from Barak Obama
I recently read an excellent post by Andrew Dlugan where he draws some powerful lessons in speech writing from President Obamas inauguration address. We can all learn much from the study and deconstruction of effective speeches and this article is one of the clearest I have read for a while. I recommend that you set…
Read MoreImpromptu speaking tips – part 2
In my last post I focused on the delivery side of an impromptu speech but what about the content? How do I stop by brain going blank and running out of things to say? Well here are two further technique to help you wow your audience ; Use the PEP model Position – Start…
Read MoreImpromptu Speaking Tips – Part 1
Delivering a prepared speech can be nerve-racking enough, the thought of being put on the spot to give a short speech without any preparation or advance warning can seem to some people like their worst nightmare. other people cope remarkably well with these situations so what can we learn from them? Well for a start…
Read MorePlanning a speech – Try the aeroplane approach
Some people find it hard to plan and structure their speech effectively. There are lots of models out there but here is one of my favourites. It’s called the aeroplane approach and is particularly useful when you know how you want your speech to finish but are not sure how to get to that end…
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