How about you?

In this article, you will learn:

• 8 common faulty assumptions you might be making;
• the subsequent result on your presentations; and
• how to fix your flawed thinking.

8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions

Eight common faulty assumptions that speakers make are:

1. Deep knowledge of a topic alone will enable me to present ideas on it.
2. My audience members are mind readers.
3. I can present information/concepts that took me 3 months to learn in a 20-minute presentation.
4. Everyone in my audience is equal.
5. I don’t need to practice out loud.
6. I’ll have plenty of time to get there.
7. If I get off the platform/stage, I will be closer to audience members.
8. If I speak at my normal speed, everyone will understand me.

Let’s examine each of these a little deeper.

Assumption #1 — Deep knowledge of a topic alone will enable me to present ideas on it

Knowledge of a subject you are going to speak about is critical, but it is only a beginning to have an impact on an audience. You also need to determine:

• What you want to achieve by delivering the message? In other words, what is your purpose? What do you want the audience knowing, doing, and/or feeling as a result of your presentation?
• Who you are speaking to? What are their expectations, level of understanding, and attitudes. Depending on this, you will organize your materials accordingly, and emphasize the information that is most critical to the audience.
• Logistical considerations — How much time do you have? How many people will be in the audience? What types of visuals will work best? You need to understand all of this to determine how much information you will be presenting — and how to present it.

Assumption #2 — My audience members are mind readers

Unfortunately, audience members never know what you want them to take away from your presentation, unless you tell them multiple times.

Despite what you may think, they are not hanging on your every word. The goal is to be clear and concise. Don’t let them guess.

Assumption #3 — I can present information/concepts that took me 3 months to learn in a 20-minute presentation

Frequently, speakers want to look smart — or demonstrate that they have worked very hard — so they do a data dump. They forget that audience members can only absorb so much information at a time.

Step back and determine what they must know. Leave the rest out, or save it for the Q & A.

Assumption #4 — Everyone in my audience is equal

Typically, there are audiences within an audience. There may be a hierarchy or politics involved. Analyze the audience, and determine which members are the decision makers, and who are the influencers (sometimes they can be the same), and then plan accordingly.

If everyone is equal in rank, play to the masses.

Do your homework. Learn exactly who is in the audience.

Assumption #5 — I don’t need to practice out loud

Thinking through a presentation is very different than speaking it out loud, in a simulated environment, using your notes and/or slides.

Actors, musicians, and athletes all practice. Why should speakers be any different?

Practice helps with fluidity, timing and comfort level. Each time, say it differently, so it doesn’t become rote.

Peter Drucker said, “Spontaneity is an infinite number of rehearsed possibilities.”

Assumption #6 — I’ll have plenty of time to get there

Although the unexpected can happen, speakers should do everything possible to arrive at a speaking event/meeting well in advance.

If you don’t do your due diligence in leaving with ample time, or getting directions, you will likely arrive at the last minute — harried and looking unprofessional.

If other speakers are before you, sit in to get a sense of the tone of the meeting, and how the audience is responding.

By arriving early, you can talk to audience members, and further customize your presentation. And, of course, this allows you time to check your appearance, do some breathing exercises, check your equipment, and to be there to welcome the audience members as they arrive.

Assumption #7 — If I get off the platform/stage, I will be closer to audience members

Many speakers wrongly believe getting off a platform or stage will help them better connect with audience members. But, in fact, the majority of the audience won’t be able to see them when on the same level.

Getting into the audience can work effectively only if …

• It’s a small audience
• The room is set up for this
• You are tall enough to be seen.

Most of the time, the speaker’s need to get closer to the audience can be an annoyance to audience members when they don’t know where to look.

Stay on the platform or stage, and connect with large audiences in better ways, like using questions to get participants to raise hands, and interactive exercises in subgroups.

In a larger venue, try to have the room arranged with several aisles. That way, if you do walk into the audience, you will have a place to go.

Assumption #8 — If I speak at my normal speed, everyone will understand me.

The standard rate of speech in the United States is 120 or 160 words per minute. This varies in different parts of the country.

Speakers need to adapt their rate regionally, as well as when the information is technical and people need time to absorb it, and also when English isn’t a first language. If they don’t adapt, participants may not understood what they’re saying, or key concepts may be missed.

How to Fix Your Faulty Assumptions

Now that you’ve identified these faulty assumptions, how do you fix them?

What do you think?

What faulty assumptions have you made, only to learn the hard way?

Please share your lessons in the comments.

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Marjorie Brody is a Hall of Fame speaker, coach to Fortune 500 executives and author of more than 18 books, including Speaking is an Audience-Centered Sport. She is CEO of BRODY Professional Development, a business communication and presentation skills company located in the Philadelphia suburbs that offers tailored training programs, workshops, keynote presentations, and executive coaching. To contact Marjorie, visit www.BrodyPro.com.

When you’re asked to present as part of a panel of experts or a team making a sales pitch, you might think that there is safety in numbers and that you need to prepare less than if you were speaking on your own.

The truth is that, for your audience, a group presentation is only as strong as its weakest presenter. Here’s how to help your team create a strong and unified group presentation.

3 Ingredients of Great Group Presentations

The three ingredients to develop and deliver a unified group presentation are clarity, control, and commitment.

1. Clarity
   • Clarity of Purpose
   • Clarity of Roles
   • Clarity of Message
2. Control
   • Control Introductions
   • Control Transitions
   • Control Time and Space
3. Commitment
   • Commit to a Schedule
   • Commit to Rehearsing
   • Commit to Answering Your Audience’s Questions

Incorporating these elements will give your audience a “seamless” message.

Ingredient #1: Clarity

Clarity means clearness of purpose, thought or style. Developing clarity within your group will help you develop a clear message for your audience.

Clarity of Purpose

Just as your presentation will have a clear purpose, expressed in a thesis statement, your group should create a Charter Statement that explicitly captures the group’s desired outcome.

The charter is different from a thesis statement. The thesis specifically frames the presentation message whereas the charter frames your group’s purpose. This Charter Statement becomes the test of everything that will go into the presentation and help guide the efforts of the team. The charter and the thesis may overlap, but even your thesis statement must be tested against the group’s Charter.

For example, if your group agrees that your general purpose is to sell your product, and, more specifically, you know that the key decision maker in the audience is leery about cutting checks to companies like yours, build that into your Charter Statement.

The purpose of our presentation is to sell our Product to ABC Company by overcoming the objections of the company’s Purchasing Officer through clear examples of how our Product provides a fast return on investment.

The Charter Statement will come in handy when you have a team member who may want to go “off track” to tell personal anecdotes that don’t pass the test of the group’s charter.

Clarity of Roles

Personalities come into play when groups meet to develop presentations. Jockeying for position and ego struggles can quickly deplete the group’s momentum, resulting in hurt feelings and, potentially, a weaker presentation. Providing clarity to group roles helps to establish expectations and keep the entire group moving towards a common objective: a great group presentation.

Identify the roles your group needs during message development. For example, to ensure that team members are meeting assignments, select a Project Manager. This person isn’t the “boss of the presentation”, but rather will focus on schedule and assignments.

Other roles could include a Gap Analyst who is responsible for identifying “gaps” in content and support materials (handouts, graphics, etc.), which in turn could work closely with other roles within the group like the Chief Researcher.

Capitalize on the unique personalities within your group to develop roles that work well for all, but be sure to discuss the roles openly so they are clear to everyone.

Clarity of Message

Instead of writing “speeches” for each individual speaker, try creating one master presentation, a unified narrative, and then decide who speaks to which points, and when.

This is a shift from the traditional segmented method of group presentations where often group members are directed to “give five minutes of talking” and then are left to develop content independently.

In a master presentation, each speaker may weave in and out at various points during the presentation. When done well, this fluid dynamic can hold an audience’s attention better by offering a regular change in speakers’ voices and presence.

By using a master presentation, your group will ensure that each of the presenters will stay “on script” and use cohesive language, smooth transitions, and (when using visuals) consistent graphics.

Ingredient #2: Control

Group presentations face unique logistical challenges beyond just developing presentation content.

Control Introductions

Your audience notices how your group introduces itself, so plan those introductions with your presentation.

Your presentation may be part of a larger event that includes an emcee who will introduce the team. If so, be sure that you provide pertinent information to the emcee that will allow her/him to generate interest in your presentation even before you begin speaking.

If your group is responsible for making its own introductions, however, you will need to decide if you will introduce your group members in the beginning, or when they first speak. Your group also will need to decide if each member introduces her/himself, or if one member will introduce everyone.

There is no one right way to do introductions, but your group must decide how to do them before the day of the presentation.

Control Transitions

Decide how you are going to “hand off” from one speaker to the next. In the “master presentation” approach, you may want to consider simply have speakers pick up a narrative right where the previous speaker left off.

If you use the more traditional segmented approach, each speaker may cue the subsequent speakers by identifying them and their subject matter. For example:

“…and speaking of quality control, no one is more qualified the Bob Johnson. Bob is going to tell us about how this team will deliver a quality project for you.”

Another option is to assign a group emcee who will handle transitions between presentation sections. Your group will need to determine which option makes the most sense based on your presentation style and audience expectations.

Control Time and Space

Multiple speakers translate to occupying more physical space, and the potential to gobble up more time with introductions and transitions.

If you will be presenting in a small room, consider where each speaker needs to be positioned to quickly reach the speaking area, and whether they will sit or stand when not speaking.

Your presentation must fit within your allotted time, so you will need to time your group’s presentation, including equipment set up, introductions, and transitions.

Ingredient #3: Commitment

Commitment from each group member is going to give your presentation the best content and flair that will impress your audience.

Commit to a Schedule

Once you know the date of your presentation, create a schedule that includes specific milestones, such as “presentation draft due” and “final rehearsal”. Having a specific schedule allows members either to agree to the group’s expectations or to offer dates that better fit their personal schedules.

Additionally, you can assign specific responsibilities to the scheduled milestones; for example, who is responsible for bringing the handouts, projector, and laptop to the presentation?

Commit to Rehearsing

Rehearsing is one of the most important steps for presentation success. Have your team members agree from day one that they will make themselves available to practice with the group.

If you find group members who lack the commitment to rehearse, consider finding group members who will commit. Practice makes perfect, and no rehearsal means your group doesn’t know what will happen to the content, timing, or quality of the presentation. Do those sound like things your group would like to leave to chance?

Commit to Answering Your Audience’s Questions

Once your formal presentation is over, you may see some raised hands in the audience, ready to pepper your group with questions. Your presentation is not over yet. How you handle those questions is as important as the presentation itself. A well-done presentation means nothing if presenters fumble questions so badly that they appear incompetent.

Have each member develop a list of potential questions and then, as a group, review the list. Discuss who will be responsible for handling which types of questions. Are there any questions important enough to build into the presentation?

From a Rag-Tag Group of Speakers to a Dynamic Presenting Team

By incorporating these three ingredients into your next group presentation process, you will find that you not only develop a presentation that your audience loves, but your group will transform from a rag-tag group of speakers into a dynamic presenting team.

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Chaunce Stanton provides marketing communications support for the professional services industry, including architects, engineers, and scientists. For more than eight years, he has routinely helped teams develop messages and craft polished presentations for multimillion-dollar projects. Chaunce is an enthusiastic member of Toastmasters International in St. Paul, Minnesota’s Metropolitan Chapter.

Other speaking sins are so grave that when you commit them, your speech or presentation is certain to fail. This article reveals the seven deadly sins of public speaking.

Deadly Sin #1: Sloth

Sloth, or laziness, is committed by speakers who fail to prepare.

Speaking in public, whether formally or informally, is an essential activity that requires effort. Yet, the majority of people expend no effort to improve their effectiveness as a speaker. Tragically, they are content to drift from one frustrating presentation to the next.

You can avoid sloth in a number of ways:

• Enroll in a public speaking course
• Read public speaking books
• Read public speaking blogs
• Join Toastmasters or another local speaking club
• Study great speakers
• Hire a speaking coach

(By reading this article, you’re making the effort to improve. Sloth has no claim on you!)

Failing to prepare for life by improving your speaking skills leads to a chain of excuses, characterized by…

Deadly Sin #2: Envy

Envy is characterized by a false belief that great speakers are simply lucky to have been born with natural speaking skills.

You’ve heard the excuses from your colleagues, haven’t you?

• “She’s so lucky! She’s a natural speaker!”
• “Hmph! It’s so easy for him to speak in front of people.”
• “No, I couldn’t deliver the proposal. I’m not a speaker.”

People who are envious of the “natural” skills of others are more likely to apply misguided solutions when confronted by an unavoidable speaking situation:

• They steal stories and anecdotes from others rather than creating original ones
• They copy PowerPoint slides from others even if they don’t quite apply
• They mimic the oratorical style of others and lack authenticity

Because of bad habits like this, speakers suffer from lack of confidence. They know the stories, the slides, and the words are not their own. Nervousness results because they fear being exposed, and this nervousness leads to crazy behaviors like…

Deadly Sin #3: Lust

The lustful speaker attempts to calm their nerves by applying the common (yet terrible) advice to picture the audience naked!

Please don’t picture the audience naked, especially if I am in your audience.

In theory, picturing your audience naked makes them seem as vulnerable as you feel. It may provide a brief lighthearted moment to feed your teenaged appetite, but it won’t help you speak better.

More likely, it will cause an additional distraction and impede your efforts to connect with your audience. Consider this: how easy is it for you to communicate something meaningful to a room full of naked people? Can you inspire them? Impossible.

Nervous speakers who avoid this lustful deadly sin are, unfortunately, still prone to committing another deadly sin…

Deadly Sin #4: Gluttony

Gluttony is exhibited by speakers who believe that more is always better.

More slides, more bullets, more examples, more facts, more numbers, more details, more words — more of everything.

Packing all possible material into your presentation and then speeding through it is flawed, despite your best intentions to provide maximum value. More is (usually) not better. Cognitive research shows that people have a limited capacity to absorb information (see Kosslyn’s Clear and to the Point and Mayer’s Multimedia Learning). Overloading that capacity will reduce their ability to absorb anything at all! Quantity is no substitute for quality.

It is better to focus your presentation on your core message, select only the very best support material (facts, slides, anecdotes), and speak at a reasonable pace. Supplementary material, if necessary, belongs in a handout.

All of this gluttony — too many slides, too many stories, too many details — leads the speaker down a dark and dirty path towards…

Deadly Sin #5: Greed

Greed is the deadly sin of excess, and is committed by a speaker who goes over time.

Does this sound familiar?

• “Oh, is that clock correct? I’m only halfway through…”
• “I haven’t gotten to the good part yet…”
• “Are there any objections to cutting our lunch break in half so I can finish this?”

Speaking for more than your allotted time violates the contract you have with your audience, and that’s never good. People are busy and do not appreciate having their time wasted. Nobody will complain if you finish a few minutes early.

If you go over time, negative emotions begin to fill the room, making you more susceptible to experience…

Deadly Sin #6: Wrath

Wrath, or uncontrolled anger, is committed by a speaker who handles problems in the worst possible way.

As a speaker, you should always remain in control. No matter how bad your presentation is going, keep calm. Don’t let these frustrations provoke you:

• When you make a mistake (even a big one), resist the urge to draw more attention to it by cursing yourself in an attempt to draw pity.
• When an audience member is disrupting the room, resist the urge to “solve” it with sarcasm.
• When the room or venue logistics fail, don’t start blaming the organizers or anyone else. Instead, roll with in and move on.
• When an audience member is heckling you, do not take the bait.

Getting angry — whether at yourself, someone in the audience, or some other factor — is one of the worst things you can do. Your audience will feel uncomfortable and your credibility will be diminished considerably.

Finally, the first six speaker sins are all symptoms of the deadliest speaking sin of them all…

Deadly Sin #7: Pride

Pride is committed by a speaker who believes that public speaking is about them.

It’s not.

• It’s never about you.
• It’s never about your impressive accolades in your introduction.
• It’s never about your dazzling delivery where you channel Churchill.
• It’s never about your sumptuous slides which prominently feature your company logo beside dazzling 3-D pie charts.

Public speaking is always about the audience and the message you want to convey. Failing to put the audience first will kill any presentation. You need to perform audience analysis to discover how best to structure your presentation and deliver the message.

Avoid this sin by starting to analyze your presentation from the audience’s perspective. Amazingly, most of the other speaking sins will go away.

• You’ll recognize that you need to prepare. (Sloth)
• You will realize that you are uniquely capable of delivering your message to this audience. (Envy)
• You will trim all of the fluff to deliver a message which is focused and easy-to-understand. (Gluttony)
• You will respect the time your audience has given you. (Greed)
• You won’t saddle your audience with your problems. (Wrath)

As for Lust when speaking, well… that’s just silly.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Public Speaking

1. Sloth: failing to prepare for your speech or presentation
2. Envy: believing that great speakers are born with their skills
3. Lust: quelling your nerves by picturing the audience naked
4. Gluttony: believing that more words/slides/facts/numbers is always better
5. Greed: speaking over your allotted time
6. Wrath: rigidly reacting to problems and losing your cool
7. Pride: placing yourself ahead of the audience

How many of these speaking sins are committed in presentations you attend?

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Do you provide good service, or bad service? More importantly, does it matter?

Customer Service at Home Depot

Recently, I visited Home Depot to purchase a table saw. I found one in my price range that seemed to have the features I desired.

• I asked the salesman (”Salesman A”)to answer a few questions. He told me that he couldn’t leave his station. (The saw was about 30 feet away from his station.)
• I asked the salesman for the saw specifications. He told me to go home and look it up on the manufacturer website.
• When I returned (hey, it was a good price!), I asked him to have the saw brought out to me. He told me that I’d have to wait for the forklift operator to get one down. I waited ninety minutes. The forklift never arrived.
• When I threatened to leave unless I received better service, he blamed “Atlanta” (head office) for short-staffing. I walked out.

Customer Service at Southridge Building Supplies

Contrast this with my experience at the local tool store, a store that I initially didn’t expect to even carry table saws because they were so small.

• I didn’t see any table saws I liked out front. The salesman (”Salesman B”) left his “station” and walked to the warehouse with me.
• The saw was (as before) up on the top shelf. The salesman ran (yes… ran!) into the back lot and yelled for the forklift operator, who then appeared 20 seconds later.
• Since this was not the same model as the big box store, I asked about the specifications again. He didn’t know… but for the next 45 minutes, he did Internet searches, looked through about about 50 product binders, and rifled through filing cabinets to find the answer. [Eventually, he gave up. But, I appreciated the effort.]
• He didn’t blame anyone. Instead, he told me that he would call the product distributor on Monday to get the answers for me.

Eventually, I got a much better product at a much better price (the Delta model, pictured above). Because of the great customer service, I’ve returned to buy kerosene, deck screws, and sandpaper, and will continue to give my business to them.

Can these lessons be applied to public speaking?

What is Customer Service for Speakers?

Three ways to compete with competitors in any industry are to offer the lowest price, highest quality, or best service. It’s difficult to accomplish all three simultaneously.

These concepts have parallels in public speaking too:

• Price
  Your speaking fee, and also the “opportunity cost” your audience pays to listen to you. (i.e. if they weren’t listening to you for an hour, what else could they be doing?)
• Quality
  The intrisic value of your message, because this is the only thing your audience takes away with them. How much will their lives or their businesses improve as a result of applying that message?
• Service
  How easy are you making it for them to receive your message?

Let’s focus on this third element — customer service — and ask some questions.

1. Do you provide necessary background information?

A poor speaker:

• assumes that their audience has the background knowledge
• expects them to look it up themselves after (Salesman A)

A good speaker:

• performs audience analysis to determine what the audience doesn’t know
• devotes the necessary time to bridge that gap early in the presentation. (Salesman B)

2. Are you willing to meet your audience half way?

A poor speaker:

• will not customize content, slides, or delivery for a given audience
• will put the message out there with facts and figures, but it will be inaccessible to the audience just like the table saw on the top shelf was inaccessible to me without a forklift

A good speaker:

• uses language that is familiar to the audience
• chooses examples that will be understood
• adopts a delivery style that is comfortable to the audience/event
• employs metaphors, analogies, or other devices to make the message understandable

3. Are you flexible, both with the audience and with the event host?

A poor speaker:

• refuses to go beyond what it says in the contract (like Salesman A who would not leave his station)
• insists on using their full planned time (e.g. 60 minutes), even if the event is behind schedule
• ignores questions that arise during a presentation

A good speaker:

• adapts to the situation
• understand that compromises are necessary; (e.g. “okay, I’ll only speak for 40 minutes, and deliver extra material via email to audience members”)
• allows questions (within reason) during the presentation

4. Do you accept responsibility when things go wrong?

A poor speaker:

• blames outside factors (e.g. traffic, the airline)
• blames the audience (e.g. “if you had paid more attention earlier, you’d know this”)
• blames the event organizer (like Salesman A who blamed Head Office in Atlanta)

A good speaker:

• considers what can possibly go wrong, and is prepared when it happens
• arrives early to allow time to implement alternate plans when necessary
• absorbs responsibility for the problem, rather than passing the negativity on to the audience

Why does it matter?

Event planners and audiences have a choice when they book speakers or listen to speakers. In many situations, there are dozens of speakers who can deliver the same message. The level of customer service you provide distinguishes you from other speakers. Often, it determines whether you get called to speak to the same audience again.

What level of service do you provide?

How else can a speaker provide great customer service? Share your ideas in the comments.

For inspiration, you might like to consider these 10 stories of customer service and think about the parallels for public speaking.

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

How many times have you sat in an audience and thought to yourself: “Man, I’d like to be up there!”

Perhaps you’ve given a few presentations and you find out that you’re pretty darn good at this speaking thing. Maybe you join Toastmasters and rise to the top of your club. Some time goes by and you start thinking “I can make a living at this. Imagine getting paid to speak!”

You decide to go for it.

So what’s next?

Here are a few broad steps that you can take to get started in the world of professional speaking:

1. Pick a Lane
2. Be the Expert
3. Get Good
4. Set Up Shop
5. Creating a Great Promise
6. Develop a Marketing Program

1. Pick a Lane

The first step along your journey must be to “pick a lane.”

You need to choose a topic area to focus on, based on your expertise. Now you might say, “but I have several speeches that I’m very good at – how can I choose just one?”

Ask yourself this question: “What do I want to be known for 5 years from now?” If you don’t want to be known for anything and don’t care much about getting paid, then by all means continue with all of your speeches.

If you want to get paid well and be known as the expert on one thing, then pick a lane.

2. Be the Expert

When launching into a career as a professional speaker, many people make the mistake of thinking of themselves as just a speaker. In the big picture, however, you are the central cog of a company that helps to accomplish something.

Whether you help people manage their time better, lead others, get motivated, or be educated on the economy, your company should have a mission.

You should think about speaking as just one of the channels which you use to distribute your knowledge. You might also write books, consult, coach, run teleseminars, host retreats, etc.

The key is this: when you think about yourself, don’t narrow it down to professional speaker; be the head of an empire that helps people in your lane of expertise.

Remember that you can’t fake it. Your expertise must be real and credible. If you aren’t there yet, go out and develop your expertise before pursuing this path.

3. Get Good

Winning a speech contest is a step in the right direction towards getting good, but it doesn’t mean that people are going to pay you.

The real test to knowing when your speech has “made it” is when someone comes up to you after your presentation and says “I’d like to book you to speak six months from now in Las Vegas.”

When spin-off, which is king in our business, is happening on average 2-3 times after every engagement, then you can stop working on your speech. Until then, work the speech. [Ed.: spin-off refers to a future speaking engagement you gain as a direct consequence of your present engagement]

4. Set Up Shop

The speaking business is like any business. If you don’t have an entrepreneurial bone in your body, you may be in for hardship.

To get started, you need cash flow – start up capital. If you are starting on a shoe string, then you are going to find it more difficult. That said, with today’s technical world, things are a bit more possible.

For instance, you can use a blog as your website and manage it yourself. If it looks professional enough, then you might be able to save the costs of setting up and managing a website which can creep into the thousands depending on your supplier.

The key is to be able to communicate what you can do for people within 15 seconds of their arrival to your site. In our ADD web world, you don’t have long to impress someone. [Ed.: ADD = attention deficit disorder]

If they don’t see what they are looking for, they will abandon your website in a heartbeat.

5. Creating a Great Promise

The promise statement is the key to communicating your value to your prospects.

It’s like a tag line and would go on your website and marketing pieces. In five to nine words (less is more), the promise statement tells prospects what they will get by working with you.

For example, a speaker who delivers programs on team-building might create a promise “Helping Teams Win in a Competitive Field.”

You can work on making your promise more clever or reflective of your personality, but the real key is to show the outcome and the value, and to get that decision maker to lean in and say “Yes, we need that!”

6. Develop a Marketing Program

Now obviously I’m simplifying here, but once your website is up, you’ll want to create a flow of traffic to it.

You’ll want to choose industries that would be a good fit for your message and start a marketing campaign that will allow you to position with those groups as an expert.

I often recommend to my clients that they start a twelve month marketing calendar. The goal is to develop a list of followers by having people sign up for something on your website. Then to stay in touch with that list on a regular basis so that when they have a need for your expertise, you are top of mind. A few marketing ideas are:

• developing articles for your target markets
• postcard campaigns
• e-mail campaigns
• direct mail
• utilizing social media
• teleclasses

In my opinion (which comes from 20 years of working inside this field) it takes 3 years to launch a professional speaking career. Of course, there have been a few exceptions. But if you are determined to dive in and earn a living in the world of professional speaking you’ll need to pick a lane, establish your expertise, get good on the platform and develop a consistent marketing campaign.

And if you do all that and show your clients the outcome that they will get by working with you, then you will be on your way to becoming a wealthy speaker.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Book Review: The Wealthy Speaker by Jane Atkinson
• Make Money Speaking – Book Review: Rain Making (Ford Harding)

Jane Atkinson is the author of The Wealthy Speaker: The Proven Formula for Building Your Professional Speaking Business. She is a business coach for speakers, specializing in positioning and marketing. For more information, visit Jane’s website: Speaker Launcher.

Is this the year you become a more effective speaker?

Is this the year you conquer your fear?

Is this the year you customize every presentation for the audience who will receive it?

Is this the year you worry less about ums and ahs, and worry more about connecting with the audience?

Is this the year you realize its not the quantity of information conveyed, but the quality of how you convey it?

Is this the year you eliminate the phrase “I don’t need to rehearse”?

Is this the year you stop driving people to tap on their Blackberry and iPhone during your speech?

Is this the year you stop letting poor communication skills stand between you and the career that you want?

Is this the year you solicit honest feedback after every presentation?

Is this the year you act on the feedback received?

Is this the year you not only read and talk about Presentation Zen and Slide:ology, but actually put the lessons into practice?

Is this the year you stop putting people to sleep?

Is this the year you study storytelling techniques?

Is this the year you stop allowing your colleagues to commit communication suicide and give them honest feedback?

Is this the year you realize that a lengthy Q&A session is not “stealing time” away from your presentation?

Is this the year you stop using PowerPoint as a crutch?

Is this the year you realize that eye contact and gestures mean nothing if you don’t have a clear message?

Is this the year you find your voice?

Is this the year you use it to communicate whatever message resonates in your heart?

Is this the year you lose your ego and have a conversation?

Is this the year?

This is the conversation I’m having in front of a mirror on January 1st.

What conversation will you have?

This may help: 5 Habits to Achieve your Public Speaking New Year’s Resolution

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• Why Pausch, not Obama, is Best Communicator of 2008

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Cramming For Your Speech to the Last Minute

I once had a colleague who began preparing his talk the night before he spoke. Because of this, he worked late into the night and in the morning on his slides. It was common for him to be rearranging PowerPoint slides minutes before his name was called. When he stood to speak, there was a “deer in the headlights” reaction as he noticed his venue and audience for the first time.

I previously wrote about the speech preparation process — follow that advice and don’t be the deer in the headlights.

But, adequate speech preparation isn’t always enough. Years ago, although my presentation was ready, I would still retreat to a quiet place at the venue and spend the time right up to my speech “mentally preparing.” Last minute cramming was not productive. In fact, it probably made me more nervous that I would otherwise have been. More recently, I have realized that there are three much more important activities to keep you busy from the time you arrive at the venue to the time you speak.

Activity #1 — Study the Venue Logistics

Whenever possible, arrive at the venue while the room is still empty. This is especially important if the venue is new to you. Now is the time to solve any issues that might arise with the physical space. There are many issues to work out depending on the venue and the nature of your talk. For starters, here are a few to consider:

• Acquaint yourself with the speaking area.
• Do a audio check if the room warrants it.
• Plan where you’ll place props, notes, or supplies before, during, and after their use.
• Determine where the projector, screen, whiteboard, or flip chart will be relative to you. If your audience cannot see your visual aids, they will not connect with your message.
  • If these items cannot be moved, plan where you need to stand to avoid being an obstruction.
  • If these items can be moved, move them to the optimal locations for visibility from the audience.

Activity #2 — Meet Your Audience

An inexperienced speaker waits until they are introduced for their presentation before beginning to establish rapport with the audience. An experienced speaker, on the other hand, understands that rapport can be built from the moment you arrive at the venue.

• Mingle with your audience.
• Don’t let your ego interfere. Acting like a prima donna will damage your credibility with the audience.
• Ask questions and listen to the answers. You will often be able to pick up nuggets of information that you can integrate into your talk.
• Be interested and genuine. Not only will your audience like you better, but you will be more positive going into your talk, and your performance will show it.

Activity #3 — Watch, Listen, and Participate in the Event Agenda

I’ve seen speakers who appear intent on making a grand entrance no earlier than their scheduled time. (Occasionally, this cannot be helped due to scheduling…) They are missing a great opportunity to form bonds of common experience with the audience.

• Listen to other speakers.
  • Does their message overlap with yours? How should you change your speech?
  • Is their message complementary in some way? How can you accentuate this?
• What themes or trends are present at the event?
• What humorous things have happened? Can you incorporate humor by referring back to them?
• What is the mood of the audience in talks preceding yours? If the energy in the room is low, you may need to incorporate elements to pick it up.

Study the venue, meet your audience, and participate in the agenda. These three activities will reduce your nervousness and improve your performance much more than any last-minute cramming.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• 8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions and How to Fix Them
• Q&A Tips from Toastmasters International President
• Leading the Perfect Q&A
• Are Your Speech Gestures Too Small, Too Big, or Just Right?
• Connect With Your Audience: Don’t Hide Your Emotions When Speaking
• 5 Presentation Lessons from Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

This article focuses on the sixth step: critiquing your speech so you can learn from your strengths and weaknesses. Thus, a self-critique is really the first step in preparation for your next speech.

Why Critique Your Presentation Skills?

Great speakers realize that presentation skills are not easily mastered in one or two or ten speeches. Speaking skills are improved incrementally one speech at a time.

To realize these incremental improvements, it is essential to periodically review your skills. Some people prefer to do this review once a week or once a month; I recommend that you review your skills after every speech, especially if you are a novice speaker just dipping your toes into the public speaking pool.

Critiquing Your Own Speech

It only takes a few minutes to review a speech, and the best time to do it is the same day that you delivered it. Your delivery is still fresh in your mind, as is your preparation for the speech.

When critiquing your own speech, you can apply many of the same criteria that you would when critiquing someone else’s speech. You will find an extensive list of these criteria in a previous Six Minutes article about speech analysis.

Those criteria are a great start, but you can also ask yourself many other questions too.

• Overall, were you satisfied with your final speech? If not, why not?
• Did you achieve your objective? Was your core message received by the audience?
• Were you confident during your delivery? Were you more nervous or less nervous than previous speeches?
• What audience feedback did you receive during or after delivery of the speech? What strengths were mentioned? What weaknesses were revealed?
• What did you think of your delivery?
• Did you have any stumbles? Were they caused by nervousness, or was there another cause?
• How long did you speak? Was this shorter or longer than you had planned? If you were under time, this may be an indication that your speaking rate was a bit fast. If you were over time, this may be an indication that you should have cut more material.
• Did you try any new techniques, either in the preparation phase or in your delivery? If so, what did you think? What lessons can you extract?

Depending on the context of the speech, a few other questions include:

• Was your pre-speech audience analysis accurate? If not, what did you learn about this audience that you could apply to the speech to make it better?
• If you led a Q&A session during the presentation, how did it go? From the types of questions asked, did it seem like your audience “got” the message?
• If you obtained an audio recording, what did you learn from listening to it? Was your voice clear throughout? Did you have any distracting habits? (e.g. um’s, ah’s, trailing off at the end of sentences)
• If you obtained a video recording, what did you learn from watching it? How was your posture and eye contact? Were your gestures varied and timed well? Did you have any distracting habits?

And, one final question:

• If you were going to deliver the same speech to the same audience, what would you do differently?

Remember that the aim of the self-critique is not to beat yourself up over any slips or mistakes you might have made. Instead, the true aim is to celebrate your successes and look ahead to see how you can improve for your next speech.

Self-Critique Example — Face the Wind

Overall, I’m very happy with my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind. I won the club, area, and division contests, and presented on the “big stage” at the district conference.

Unfortunately, I didn’t achieve the goal I had set for myself — winning the District 21 Speech Contest. I felt that I could have won, but the field of ten contestants was very strong.

Here’s my self-assessment, aided by the fact that I have an excellent video of my performance!

Speech Self-Critique: Strengths

• I did my best. I honestly felt that I delivered the best possible speech that my skills allowed at that given time. As I was walking off the stage, I wanted to give someone a high-five because I knew the delivery was my best.
• Gestures and Staging. I felt my choreography was second to none. I received numerous compliments on this aspect of the speech. This made me quite happy because I had spent a great deal of time working on gestures and staging.
• I got laughter from the audience in most places where I was aiming for it.
• Several audience members suggested that I have the skill set to be a full-time motivational speaker.
• I had lots of fun through the whole process! I received such positive encouragement from so many people. The organizers of the district speech contest treated the contestants like royalty!

Speech Self-Critique: Weaknesses

• I felt that some body movements were a little rigid at times, particularly during the speech opening. Was this the result of too much preparation (robotic), or not enough preparation to make the movements more fluid?
  • In the future, I should videotape my rehearsal sessions to see if I can pick up on this trait.
• I think my timing and pauses could have been a little better in my delivery of humor punchlines.
  • In the future, I need to work on writing so I have better punchlines and punch words.
• In a few instances, when I lowered the volume of my voice, I think I went too quiet. It may not have been loud enough for everyone to hear.
  • In the future, I need to keep my voice strong even during “quiet” lines.
• Some feedback I received hinted that the core message could have been stronger by eliminating the entire Maximus story, and instead using the time for a stronger (and lengthier) call-to-action. Personally, I thought I needed this story to make a human connection. However, I concede that I’m probably a little too close to the story (i.e. my nephew!) to be entirely objective.
  • In the future, I need to solicit more feedback specifically about the core message and what might be done to strengthen it. Perhaps I need to devote a little more time to speech writing, and less to delivery techniques.

A question for you, my esteemed readers… How could I have improved the speech?

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

The last article in the Speech Preparation Series examines Toastmasters Speech Contests and the preparation necessary to be successful.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Speech Preparation #8: How to Practice Your Presentation
• How can you inspire your audience? Ask 10-year-old Dalton Sherman.
• 5 Presentation Lessons from Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture
• Speech Preparation #10: Prepare to Win a Toastmasters Speech Contest
• Speech Preparation #7: Choreograph Your Speech with Staging, Gestures, and Vocal Variety
• Speech Preparation #6: Add Impact with Rhetorical Devices

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Have you heard this claim?
“Practicing makes me robotic. My speeches are better and more natural if I just work from my outline.”

This may be acceptable for scenarios where you don’t care about the result, but in all other cases, it’s hogwash.

The eighth in the Speech Preparation Series, this article provides practical ideas for maximizing the benefit from your practice time.

Why Practice? Does Practice Make Perfect?

Practicing your speech is essential, but I’d be foolish to suggest that practice alone will result in a “that was the best speech I’ve ever heard” response from your audience. For this, you need to master essential public speaking skills and build up experience doing so.

So, while practice you won’t necessarily make you perfect, you will reap significant benefits by practicing your speech at least a couple times:

• Discover awkward phrases and tongue-twisters that you did not notice when writing and editing. Speaking the words out loud exposes flaws that reading does not.
• Gauge your energy level. Does delivering this speech fire you up? Or are you bored with it?
• Gauge your timing. Once you get more experienced, you will learn how many words can fit in a 10-minute time slot. Until then, however, practicing the complete speech is the best way to know if you are under or over time.
• Reduce nervousness. Rehearsing even one time will improve your confidence in your material.

How to Rehearse Your Speech

You might practice for 60 hours. You might practice for 60 minutes. Either way, here are a few tips that will help you achieve maximum benefit from time spent rehearsing:

• Re-create the speech setting
  Reading your speech at a desk (or from your computer screen) is not optimal unless you are preparing for a webcast. Try to duplicate the speech setting as much as you can.
  • Practice in the room where you’ll be speaking, if you can.
  • Stand up. You get more realistic voice projection.
  • Rehearse with props and visual aids.
  • Arrange an audience. Practicing with an audience is better than practicing without one… even if it is not your target audience.
  • Consider what you will wear when your speech will be delivered. Will it add complications? Inhibit gestures or movement in any way?
• Take notes
  Don’t hesitate to stop yourself in the middle of your rehearsal to jot down ideas as they come to you. Capture internal feelings immediately.
• Experiment
  Try out different voices, gestures, or staging. This is especially important for your opening, conclusion, and any other key points. Give yourself confidence knowing that these lines will be delivered precisely as you intended.
• Time yourself
  You can easily do this yourself, but it helps if someone else can time you. Insert planned pauses, and insert delays when you expect laughter or some other audience response. This may feel funny, but an accurate timing estimate will tell you if you need to do more editing.
• Use all that you learn to edit your speech and make it better.

Soliciting Feedback

Practicing your speech is good.
Practicing your speech with an audience is better.
Practicing your speech with someone who will give you honest feedback is best.

Practicing with an audience gives you valuable feedback:

• Is your humor drawing smiles and laughs or is it missing completely?
• Are you keeping the audience’s attention throughout?
• Are you receiving positive feedback in the form of nodding heads and smiles, or is a blank stare the most common expression?

After the rehearsal, actively solicit feedback. Make it clear that you want honest opinions about what could be improved. A dozen “Good speech!” comments may boost your ego, but it won’t boost the quality of your speech. To reap feedback that will improve your speech, ask open-ended questions like these:

• What was your favorite element in the speech? Why?
• What would you like to see improved?
• How can I improve my speech for next time?

This is far better than asking yes/no questions such as “Did you like it?”

If the presentation is important to you, and you don’t have a test audience that provides you with valuable feedback, hire a coach! Hire me or one of thousands of speech coaches.

Audio Recordings

Audio recordings help you gauge many delivery qualities, including speaking pace, pitch, and pauses.

• Assess which phrases sound “good” and which are awkward to listen to.
• Listen for um’s, ah’s, and other filler words.
• Notice if and when you stumbled.
• Time the overall speech (which would be easy to do with a watch), as well as individual segments of the speech (which you cannot do unless you stop and start numerous times).

I recently acquired the inexpensive Olympus WS-311M digital voice recorder for speech rehearsals. It is small (easy to carry) and has all the features I need for recording and playing back speeches. I encourage you to check it out along with competing products.

• As I’m writing this article, it is selling for $79 US [$49 off the list price]. That’s much less than I paid. That’s life.

Video Recordings

A video recording of yourself speaking is an incredibly powerful tool. All of your habits — both good and bad — are captured. In addition to the audio assessments mentioned in the previous section, you can also learn:

• Are your gestures working?
• Are your gestures synchronized well with your words?
• Are your gestures varied, or are they monotonous?
• Are you smiling?
• Are you fidgeting, or displaying any other distracting mannerisms?
• Does your body sway from side to side?
• Eye contact is difficult to assess if the recording was made without a full audience, but you should be able to tell at least if your eyes are up, or down at your toes.
• If you are using visual aids, are your transitions smooth?
• If you are using a prop, was it handled smoothly?

I own an older model Sony DCR-TRV33 which records digitally on MiniDV tapes, but I’m sure any modern video camera is sufficient. The one luxury upgrade I wish I had is a lavalier microphone to capture better sound quality than the camera’s built-in microphone.

Practical Example — Face the Wind

I practiced my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind more than any other speech I’ve ever delivered. Here are the most valuable lessons I learned:

• The speech (in various iterations) was delivered formally four times at the club, area, division, and district speech contests.
• I rehearsed over 100 times. I rehearsed the speech in the car driving to/from work every day for about six weeks. I rehearsed in front of my wife and daughter. I rehearsed in the hotel room before the district contest. I rehearsed every chance I could.
• In the car, I obviously couldn’t do the gestures or staging, but I experimented heavily with different vocal variety, and then jotted down my observations when I reached my destination.
• After each of the first three contests, I sought feedback from audience members. In all cases, I received wonderful suggestions which made the speech better. Significant editing was performed after each contest.
• I sat down with a trusted fellow speaker and walked through the entire speech, line by line. This detailed review helped me perform some tough editing. It is easier to cut lines you love when someone looks you in the eye and tells you that they aren’t working.

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

You are ready to deliver your speech. Good luck! You will be awesome.

Immediately after the speech, the time is ripe for preparing for the next one. Productive self-critiquing is the focus of the next article in the Speech Preparation Series.

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• How to Deliver the Talk of Your Life
• The 7 Deadly Sins of Public Speaking
• How can you inspire your audience? Ask 10-year-old Dalton Sherman.

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

This article provides a speech evaluation form and explains how it supports you in studying and evaluating speeches.

Speech Evaluation Form

First things first… download a copy of the free speech evaluation form.

I created this form for use in Toastmasters Evaluation Contests (a topic of a future article here), but I have since used it as a general purpose speech evaluation template.

Why this speech evaluation tool may work for you…

• It is simple — one single-sided page.
• Lots of white space, to facilitate taking notes.
• Flexible. The labels and boxes are not tied to any particular style of speech, e.g. speaking to inform
• Rows recognize the three broad areas to be analyzed: impact, content, and delivery. These are in order of importance from top to bottom.
• The critical nature of the Opening and Closing is recognized with dedicated rows on the form.
• Two columns emphasize the necessity to recognize both the strengths and weaknesses of a speech or speaker.
• Evaluation Opening and Evaluation Summation are for notes which lead to an oral evaluation (e.g. in Toastmasters). They can be ignored if you are analyzing the speech in a different context.

An alternate speech evaluation template…

At a speech evaluation workshop that I recently led, one speaker told me of the speech evaluation template that works for him.

It is wonderfully simple, consisting of just two rows (Content, Delivery) and three columns (I felt, I saw, I heard). “Content – I Saw” might include things like props or slideware, while “Delivery – I Saw” might cover gestures or facial expressions. This template allowed him to effectively analyze the speech his way.

I strongly encourage you to develop a template that works for you. Maybe the examples here are perfect. Maybe they need a tweak. Maybe you need something entirely different as an aid to capture your thoughts and observations. Whatever the case, an evaluation template can help you.

Critiquing a Speech: Advice from the Blogosphere and Beyond

There’s some great advice elsewhere in the public speaking blogosphere and elsewhere on speech evaluation:

• How to Give a Killer Evaluation: lifehack.org
• Speech Self Critique Guide: Navy Speakers Bureau
• Evaluation Resources from Toastmasters New Zealand
  Includes “step-by-step approach” to speech evaluation, 10 steps to becoming an evaluation champion.
• Evaluation Template – Wendy Betteridge [PDF]
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Evaluators: Dr. Dilip Abayasekera, former Toastmasters International President

Next in the Speech Analysis Series

The next article in the series is Toastmasters Evaluation Contests.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Speech Analysis #5: Toastmasters Evaluation Contests
• Speech Preparation #10: Prepare to Win a Toastmasters Speech Contest
• Speech Analysis #3: Modified Sandwich Technique for Evaluations
• Speech Analysis #2: The Art of Delivering Evaluations
• Speech Analysis #1: How to Study and Critique a Speech
• Video Critique: J.A. Gamache (Toastmasters, 2007)

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.