By far one of the most neglected parts of a presentation is the transition from one point to another. The sad thing is that transitions can completely breathe new life into a speech and give you a surefire way to get everyone leaning forward waiting to hear what comes next. Below you will pick up […]
Continue readingThat past 12 years of professional speaking have taught me something invaluable that I never expected to learn about audiences. Your connection to them often comes from what you didn’t plan to do or say Spontaneity Sparks Speaking Success Surely you can connect with your planned content. However, audience members love to feel […]
Continue readingTo become a top-notch speaker and keep improving, it is important to internalize valuable speaking truths. Now, these are my truths but I’ve certainly found them to work for the hundreds of speakers I have personally coached. I suggest that you tack these Reminders up in your workspace and keep them in front of […]
Continue readingClosing your speech with impact can open up the doors of opportunities because what you say last determines how your audience members feel once they walk out of the doors and go back to their lives. You can give a wonderful speech but if the ending is weak, your audience will walk away feeling like the […]
Continue readingHave you ever been inspired by a speaker and ready to take on the world but then 3 days later you were back to normal? I know I have. Would you like to be the kind of speaker who not only inspires your audience for the short-term but also touches their lives for the long-term? […]
Continue readingSo often I watch speakers tell stories that sound like this: “I did this and I did that and then I did this and then I did that and then this happened to me and then I did that…” And then, at the end of the story, they turn to the audience and say, “And […]
Continue readingMost of the time my job is to tease you and make you wait for the breakthrough point but today I’m coming straight out with it. As you may know, speaking involves creating a series of scenes into which we bring our audience members. But the question is how do we bring them into these […]
Continue readingWhen companies bring you in to speak, they don’t want a cookie-cutter presentation. They want you to customize the message and the experience just for their staff. Doing so means the difference between being re-hired time and time again (and building a lucrative business without much marketing cost) or doing “one-off” speeches, burning that bridge, […]
Continue readingDo you want to connect deeply with your audience? Great, then take advantage of the spontaneous moments that occur during your prepared speech. How? Well, before we get into how, let’s look at why. Why should you use spontaneity in speaking? After all, this is supposed to be a prepared speech, right? Why Use Spontaneity? […]
Continue readingThe quickest way to connect with your audience is to share your failures and flaws. Sometimes sharing your frustrations and firsts also helps. Why Share Failures? Lots of people don’t care for motivational speakers because they’re used to hearing the kind that thinks a motivational speech should consist of bragging about their successes and then […]
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