Speaking in public can be a powerful way to build a business. It can help raise the profile of your business, generate new leads and create greater profits. But speaking in public can be nerve wracking and seriously stressful for first timers. Writing a speech can be a major challenge, especially for technical writers.

We can all learn from watching professional speakers.

I have achieved a long held ambition to hear Bill Clinton – in Perth on Saturday February 23, 2002. It was a fantastic event!

My motivation? Anyone who earns $300,000 for a 50 minute keynote presentation must be good. As a professional speaker, I wanted to see Clinton in action. I didn’t want to only hear what he said, but how he said it.

Here’s my analysis of what I learnt from hearing Bill Clinton in person and noting how he was presented. You should be able to adapt at least some of these points to fit your own circumstances.

1. The marketing strategy

In previous years a big advertising blitz brought audiences to see speakers such as former Soviet leader Gorbachov and others. Their marketing approach was very commercially focused with a massive advertising budget. The Clinton event had a more humanitarian angle with funds being raised for a good cause, namely sick kids through The Princess Margaret Hospital for Children Foundation. This was a better match with Clinton’s core values of building community and having an empathy with the concerns of ordinary people. The marketing campaign relied heavily on positive media coverage to create awareness of the event.

2. A memorable entry

Clinton’s entry to the ballroom was brilliantly stage-managed. Everyone was asked to stand and then he walked into the room to his US Presidential election theme song ‘Happy Days are here again’. The emotion in the room was electric and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!

3. Personal presentation

His dress and presentation was absolutely immaculate. (Maybe the $500 haircuts help.) Many women at my table commented that Clinton was far better looking in the flesh than on TV.

4. The Power of Presence

There was a buzz about being in the same room as President Clinton. His body language, smile and confident hand shake exuded charisma. His considerable charm reminded me of that high school science experiment when you tip iron filings onto
a white sheet of paper covering a strong magnet. People were attracted to Clinton like metal filings to a powerful magnetic field.

5. Warm-up

Alan Jones was MC and the warm-up included a short film taking a light hearted look at Clinton’s last days in office. Scenes included Clinton washing the Presidential car, clipping the hedges and playing switchboard operator in the Oval Room. A great scene from a press conference showed Clinton waking a single sleeping journalist.

6. Introduction

A well constructed introduction helped build empathy and highlighted that Clinton’s life had not all been plain sailing. The fact that his father died when he was young, his mother was a nursing assistant and he was born in Hope, a town of 10,000 people, helped put his success and achievements in context.

7. Building on the sense of destiny

A strong personal brand is built on stories. The story of Clinton meeting President Kennedy when on a youth leadership camp was used to great effect. Not only was it mentioned in the introduction but that famous photo of Clinton shaking JFK’s hand was also used in the marketing materials. Other brand building shots included an intimate moment with Hilary, a shot of him playing the saxophone, a jogging photo, one with Chelsea and one featuring Clinton lined up with 3 past Presidents. They all helped to define Clinton the man.

8. Customising the message

Clinton’s speech in Perth was customised to include stories relevant to a Perth market, including his memories of Perth switching on its lights at night for a US space mission re-entry and comments on a former US President’s career as a mining engineer in Kalgoorlie.

9. Using humour

Clinton had some great lines about how he could have helped previous Presidents in dealing with the media in tricky situations.

10. Memorable one liners using opposites

This can be very effective. When talking about possible solutions to the war against terrorism, Clinton said “most of the big things in life are simple”.

11. Repetition

Clinton used this proven speechwriting technique to great effect.

12. Using metaphors

Clinton used the metaphor of the gap between the invention of the club and the shield to describe the present situation in the war against terrorism. He said “this gap needs to closed”. Metaphors can giv
e intangible concepts more impact with an audience.

13. Develop empathy with the audience

Clinton told the story of how he was in Australia at Port Douglas on September 11th and how his daughter Chelsea was in downtown New York. He connected with every parent in the room when he talked about his feelings when he couldn’t contact his daughter for three hours on that day.

14. A call to action

The aim of the event was to raise money for a Children’s hospital. Clinton’s final words were “I want you to help”. Simple, direct and powerful.

I hope you have enjoyed this analysis. I certainly learnt a lot by seeing one of the world’s great communicators in action.
Whatever your personal views on Clinton are … his personal warmth, ability to connect with an audience and presentation skills are outstanding.

Popularity: 9% [?]

When we communicate, we usually want something to happen. We want results. And, when we’re conscious of results, we’re seeking effective communication.

To put it another way, the effectiveness of communication can be measured by the responses it gets. It’s not measured by how well we wrote or how eloquently we spoke, although those can help us get the responses we want.

Good writing and speaking help us get a response because they help get the message across. As I’ve argued in my book, A Manager’s Guide to Newsletters, a newsletter that doesn’t get read cannot get a response from readers.

So, writing, designing, speaking, and all those other creative activities matter. But, in the end, responses are what count, and effectiveness means getting the responses we want.

That’s true for all types of communication, and not just marketing campaigns. Managers who send messages to employees, for example, want employees to respond in a particular way. Maybe they want the employees to do something differently, or maybe they want to reinforce existing behaviors.

For a couple of employee newsletters I published, effectiveness meant greater awareness of health and safety issues. If the newsletter worked, then they should have helped reduce the number of plant accidents and helped employees lead healthier lifestyles.

One more point: Effectiveness cannot be achieved without articulated objectives. As the old adage goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road with do.” Or, as the inimitable Yogi Berra put it, “If you don’t know where you are going… You might end up someplace else.”

With that, let’s create a quick and easy checklist that takes us through the basic steps required for effective communication:

1. What is your objective, what do you want to happen? Do you want more sales, reduced employee turnover, renewals by members? Be specific about your objectives, and if you can attach time and dollar values to them so much the better.

2. What response of readers or listeners is necessary? What action should they take? What thoughts do you want them to keep in their minds? Do you want to reinforce existing thinking or behaviors? What do they need to do in terms of your objective?

3. Why would they respond to your message? It’s all very well for you to have objectives, but you’ll also have to offer something that provides value in their terms. Think of commercial broadcasting, which combines free entertainment with advertising messages.

4. What message content will motivate them to act? What subjects will provide that value to them?

5. How will you present that content? You can entertain, inform, consult, challenge, solve problems, and more.

6. How often will you have to repeat the message? In many cases, you’ll need to make multiple contacts to get the response you want. Stockbrokers making sales calls, for example, figure on an average of five to seven contacts before a prospect becomes a potential client.

7. If you quantified your objectives, does the value of meeting the objective exceed the cost of communicating? In a marketing context, for example, how many sales do you have to make to pay the cost of your advertising campaign?

Going through these steps will start us on the right foot, because it pushes us to think about responses. And, when we’re focused on responses, we’re much more likely to communicate effectively.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Nearly as dreaded as snakes and spiders, public speaking ranks high in causing fear in many of us.

Whether your motivation is a desire to learn or simple necessity, here is a really simple guide to writing and giving a speech. Your Topic: is this speech about something already know? Then take a blank piece of paper and write down as many facts as you can think about this subject. Put them randomly around the page with circles or boxes drawn around each thought. Then draw lines to link the thoughts together in a meaningful way. An excellent website for this type of brainstorming can be found at www.mindmap.com.

Once you’ve exhausted your inner knowledge or, if this is a topic you don’t know much about, do a google search (www.google.com) on the topic. Visit the sites that seem to speak to the topic and again write down individual thoughts or ideas on a blank sheet of paper.

Your Introduction: Now take your sheet of ideas and write a 3-sentence introduction. If you were going to describe this to me over a cup of coffee what would you say? A key to giving a speech is a conversational tone. In the introduction tell your audience what you’re about to say.

Body: In three subsections (A, B, C or I, II, III or i, ii, iii) expand on your introduction. What is the first most important thing you want your audience to know? The second most important? The third? Make each section about 2 or 3 paragraphs long. Keep referring back to your brainstorm page.

Conclusion: In the introduction you told them what you were going to say. In the body, you told them again in detail. In the conclusion now tell them again. Tell them what you’re going to say, tell them, and then tell them what you said. Make the conclusion about 2 times as long as your introduction.

Do you want action with that? A speech is made to inform, to persuade, or to move to action. Finish off your speech with a statement that meets one of those purposes.

As a rule of thumb, a single-spaced, typed page should take 3 to 4 minutes to read through at the correct pace. If it takes less, you’re going too fast.

Practice, practice, practice – do NOT read your speech to your audience; either from 5X8 cards or from a typed sheet. To give a good speech you must sound familiar with the material; to become familiar with the material requires repetition. Repetition means reading the material aloud up to 50 times if necessary until you are totally familiar with it.

A good speech also involves feedback. During practice sessions you must recruit family or friends or coworkers to listen to you. Don’t ask them if it’s “good” or not; rather ask if it sounds conversational. Rewrite as needed to make your sentences sound like a normal conversation.

Fear: Since speech making often causes fear it must be dealt with beforehand. First, familiarity with your content will reduce fear. Repetition causes familiarity so practice, practice, practice. Ultimately, if you need notes for fear you’ll forget, you are not familiar enough with the material. If you MUST use notes, keep them to a minimum – perhaps your outline points (introduction, ABC, conclusion).

While giving the speech do not READ, do not look down, do not go too fast. Some tricks – if you wear glasses, take them off. You’ll be less nervous if you can’t see the audience so clearly. If you have notes you’ll be looking down and just make it more obvious how uncomfortable you are – especially if you lose your place and have to stop. Again a sign you are not familiar enough with your material. Instead of making eye contact, look at each individual’s forehead. To your audience it looks as if you are making eye contact without actually having to.

Make your speech about half as fast as you feel the urge to. When giving a speech we often speed up making ourselves sound silly and making it difficult for the audience to get your points.

Speech making comes to most of us sooner or later. If you’ll think out and organize what you want to say, if you’ll practice until you sound conversational, and if you’ll deal with fear up front, then you’re speech will be well received.

As a final incentive, remember that your audience is not out there to ridicule or belittle you. They are actually rooting for you to give an interesting talk. Do you actually think they’re there just waiting to pounce on your mistakes?

Good presenters are worth their weight in gold. How do I know? Just think for a moment about all the poor speeches you’ve endured. You would have given anything to be elsewhere. Now th
ink about someone who made a memorable speech. Which would you rather listen to? Which would you rather be?

If you have questions about making a presentation, write me at the email address below.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Speaking in public can be a powerful way to build a business. It can help raise the profile of your business, generate new leads and create greater profits. But speaking in public can be nervewracking and seriously stressful for first timers. Writing a speech can be a major challenge, especially for technical writers.

We can all learn from watching professional speakers.

I have achieved a long held ambition to hear Bill Clinton – in Perth on Saturday February 23, 2002. It was a fantastic event!
My motivation? Anyone who earns $300,000 for a 50 minute keynote presentation must be good. As a professional speaker, I wanted to see Clinton in action. I didn’t want to only hear what he said, but how he said it.

Here’s my analysis of what I learnt from hearing Bill Clinton in person and noting how he was presented. You should be able to adapt at least some of these points to fit your own circumstances.

1. The marketing strategy
In previous years a big advertising blitz brought audiences to see speakers such as former Soviet leader Gorbachov and others. Their marketing approach was very commercially focused with a massive advertising budget. The Clinton event had a more humanitarian angle with funds being raised for a good cause, namely sick kids through The Princess Margaret Hospital for Children Foundation. This was a better match with Clinton’s core values of building community and having an empathy with the concerns of ordinary people. The marketing campaign relied heavily on positive media coverage to create awareness of the event.

2. A memorable entry
Clinton’s entry to the ballroom was brilliantly stage-managed. Everyone was asked to stand and then he walked into the room to his US Presidential election theme song ‘Happy Days are here again’. The emotion in the room was electric and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!

3. Personal presentation
His dress and presentation was absolutely immaculate. (Maybe the $500 haircuts help.) Many women at my table commented that Clinton was far better looking in the flesh than on TV.

4. The Power of Presence
There was a buzz about being in the same room as President Clinton. His body language, smile and confident hand shake exuded charisma. His considerable charm reminded me of that high school science experiment when you tip iron filings onto
a white sheet of paper covering a strong magnet. People were attracted to Clinton like metal filings to a powerful magnetic field.

5. Warm-up
Alan Jones was MC and the warm-up included a short film taking a light hearted look at Clinton’s last days in office. Scenes included Clinton washing the Presidential car, clipping the hedges and playing switchboard operator in the Oval Room. A great scene from a press conference showed Clinton waking a single sleeping journalist.

6. Introduction
A well constructed introduction helped build empathy and highlighted that Clinton’s life had not all been plain sailing. The fact that his father died when he was young, his mother was a nursing assistant and he was born in Hope, a town of 10,000 people, helped put his success and achievements in context.

7. Building on the sense of destiny
A strong personal brand is built on stories. The story of Clinton meeting President Kennedy when on a youth leadership camp was used to great effect. Not only was it mentioned in the introduction but that famous photo of Clinton shaking JFK’s hand was also used in the marketing materials. Other brand building shots included an intimate moment with Hilary, a shot of him playing the saxophone, a jogging photo, one with Chelsea and one featuring Clinton lined up with 3 past Presidents. They all helped to define Clinton the man.

8. Customising the message
Clinton’s speech in Perth was customised to include stories relevant to a Perth market, including his memories of Perth switching on its lights at night for a US space mission re-entry and comments on a former US President’s career as a mining engineer in Kalgoorlie.

9. Using humour
Clinton had some great lines about how he could have helped previous Presidents in dealing with the media in tricky situations.

10. Memorable one liners using opposites
This can be very effective. When talking about possible solutions to the war against terrorism, Clinton said “most of the big things in life are simple”.

11. Repetition
Clinton used this proven speechwriting technique to great effect.

12. Using metaphors
Clinton used the metaphor of the gap between the invention of the club and the shield to describe the present situation in the war against terrorism. He said “this
gap needs to closed”. Metaphors can give intangible concepts more impact with an audience.

13. Develop empathy with the audience
Clinton told the story of how he was in Australia at Port Douglas on September 11th and how his daughter Chelsea was in downtown New York. He connected with every parent in the room when he talked about his feelings when he couldn’t contact his daughter for three hours on that day.

14. A call to action
The aim of the event was to raise money for a Children’s hospital. Clinton’s final words were “I want you to help”. Simple, direct and powerful.

I hope you have enjoyed this analysis. I certainly learnt a lot by seeing one of the world’s great communicators in action.
Whatever your personal views on Clinton are … his personal warmth, ability to connect with an audience and presentation skills are outstanding.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Have you ever had to give a speech?

Do you remember that feeling? A knot in the stomach, sweaty palms and a panic attack!

Not a very pleasant experience. And yet, I’m sure your speech was a success because 90 per cent of a typical audience want the speaker to succeed.

Yet according to The Book of Lists, speaking in public is one of our greatest fears.

Much of this anxiety is due to a lack of confidence in writing and preparing a speech rather than in the delivery.

Giving a presentation can be a great way to build your business, influence public opinion or kick-start your career.

It is an excellent way to stand out from the crowd and make a real difference in people’s lives.

What are the secrets of writing a powerful and persuasive speech for any occasion?

Here are 10 tips for turning a good speech into a great one!

1. Have a plan and set some objectives & outcomes.

There is nothing worse than not knowing what you want to achieve. Do you want to educate the audience, inform, inspire, motivate or touch their emotions? Always work out what you want to achieve before beginning the speech process.

2. Have a formal structure – beginning, middle and end.

Audiences love structure and the best speeches stick to this tried and true rule. As they say: “tell them what you’re going to say, tell them and then tell them again”.

3. Avoid having too much content.

Hands up those that are guilty of this sin. I know I am. I have lost count the number of technical presentations given by CEO’s, managers, scientists, engineers, geologists and other professionals who have just put too much content into their presentations. Far too much for an audience to absorb – remember even the best audiences face information overload after 20 minutes.
How do you overcome the content crisis? See Tip # 8.

4. Define who your audience is and use the most appropriate communication
channels to reach them.

Analyse how your audience likes to take in information – do they like to be visually stimulated or do they enjoy just sitting back and listening. Or do they like to get involved, to touch and feel in a kinaesthetic way. Work out the best mix of visual, audio and kinaesthetic and use this in your speechwriting.

5. Research your speech using a range of sources.

Be a keen observer of the trends your audience is likely to be interested in and keep a file of interesting articles and information. If you are time poor- a few quick questions when meeting an audience just prior to a speech, such as “what are the issues facing your business/industry/association at the moment?” can really help target your presentation and build rapport.

6. Use personal stories, examples and metaphors to make intangible concepts
tangible.

In many cases you are trying to sell ideas and concepts in a speech. These are intangible and often difficult for the audience to grasp. Personal stories, examples and metaphors make the invisible visible.

7. Have a strong opening and closing.

People remember the opening – first impressions count! The closing is important as it should reinforce the key message you want the audience to go away with in their head after they have heard the presentation. Ending with a ‘call to action’ can be a powerful way to get your audience to act on your message.

8. Add value and extra detail through a handout.

Here’s a tip: if you want to provide detail – put it in a handout! You can get far more content across in the written form than in a speech. Always refer to this in your presentation but hand it out after your speech so the audience is not distracted reading through it while you talk. There is nothing more soul destroying for a presenter to see the audience leafing through written notes rather than looking at you!

9. Use short words and plain English.

The short words are always the best words. Avoid jargon. Use active words instead of passive. This has far more impact in the minds of your listeners.

10. Evaluate and review on a regular basis.

There’s nothing more powerful than to hear back a speech you’ve written. If you are writing a speech for someone else always try and hear the speech or at least get so
me feedback. Recording and listening back to a presentation is the fastest way to improve your skills.

Popularity: 12% [?]