In any presentation, there are basic bits of info that a consultation should receive from their presenter. You are the issue solver presenting a solution that will benefit your audience. Even though you are merely blessing the newly weds at your foremost friend’s wedding, you will still have wonders that have to be answered. The presentation should answer who, what, when, where, why and how regarding your topic. In giving that info, your presentation will have clarity and will be on course and on target to give the detail necessary to your listeners.

1. Who – Who is your target audience?

What would they love to comprehend regarding your presentation? Do they have any preconceived notions about your material? What are their fears? Are you addressing the “who” you targeted in your studies? When you address the “who” of your message, you are better in a position to relate with your guests. They’ll feel like you are speaking straight to them. They’ll give you their attention because they feel like their needs are being addressed.

2. What – What is the message you would like to talk?

What are the issues? What are the solutions? The “what” in your warning is the backbone of your presentation. It is your purpose of your moral and the reason you are speaking. It is in addition the excuse why people come to hear you.

3. When – When is the recommended time to take action?

Is there a sense of urgency in your presentation? Stressing the “when” aspect of your experience is especially important when you like your guests to take action right away following the presentation – i.e. – enroll at a class, sell promotional materials, implement what was heard)

4. Where – Where is the trouble located?

Where can your listeners find the help they need? “Where” signifies direction. This leads your guests somewhere in your presentation. Where would you like to take them? Frequent “where” statements incorporate “across the US nowadays,” “in school campuses nationwide,” “in the construction industry,” and “in families in California.”

5. Why – Why should they take action?

What are the motivating reasons in prompting your guests to take action? The chief focus here is inspiration and motivation to take action. Not just have you ever wanted them to pay attention to you, but you would like your audience to take action on what you’ve said. You like to somehow grow their lives and honing your lesson on the “why” is a critical necessity.

6. How – How can they react to your message?

How can they take action dependent on what they’ve heard? This is the studying and teaching portion of your experience. This can be the “how-to” section telling them how they can simply improve their lives. This section often incorporates steps to follow.

There are still a good many more calls into question that your presentation should answer. As you piece all of these pieces of details together, you’ll be giving your guests the detailed answers they’re looking for. You likewise present yourself as the credible source of info you like to present yourself to be!

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Gilberto Reed has been writing articles online for nearly 3 years now. Not only does this author specialize in weight loss,fitness and diet, you can as well check out his latest website on low voltage outdoor lighting and Outdoor Cat Enclosure

We begin as children striving to communicate first with our parents and then the world around us. We constantly test what works and what doesn’t work with our conversational styles. An example of this asking something in a grocery store, when we were a child. There are several ways to approach the subject matter. We may hint or be more direct by just asking for that piece of gum. This shows that we can adapt based on situational circumstances.

As children we learn to adapt by judging, interpreting and internally dialoging a situation whether consciously or subconsciously know it or not. Public speaking and normal conversation goes through the same process. To be a powerful speaker we need to be aware that there is an actual relationship linking a casual conversation and speaking to a group of people. By recognizing the similarities we can attain amazing results by capturing an audience’s attention.

First, you can organize or ideas and thought process to a more conducive manner of persuading your audience. You can slowing build to a point where the listeners cannot peal themselves away from your words and the story you are sharing with them. The relationship is subtle but we have all told a joke at one point or another. Most jokes are situational, in my opinion, so we may choose to share a different kind of joke with one person and not the same one to the next. The same subtle principal applies to talking to larger groups.

The second concept is tailoring your message to your audience. What does this mean? Well, if you were talking to a 73 year old woman, would you talk to her about playing hockey? I think not. The same is true if you were talking to an audience of financial advisors. You would focus on what would be important to that group, not telling going into a long winded explanation how to do the classic 4 step approach for bowling.

The last relationship idea is extremely important. When you are talking to a person you can tell by body language and facial expression what your message is doing to them emotionally. You may be causing people to be happy, confused, have anger or any other range of emotion. Gauging an audience is the same as reading a single person and essential for effective speaking. By reading your group you can tailor your message even further for that group.

You may say, “Hey Fran, this sounds like manipulation.” It does and yes, your right! You are trying to get across a message. I am not talking sugar coating what you say. Being more concise and to the point with your audience is always appreciated. You may be trying to sell something, trying to get them to act on something. You may be trying to get them to vote for you.

People who communicate well personally with other people will have the advantage in a large group setting. The three relationships between the two styles of communication are subtle but so connected. Master these three concepts with interpersonal communication and your public speaking skills will instantly increase.

One of the most common mistakes speakers make is to plaster a smile on their face and keep it there, regardless of what they’re saying. This is as true for my public speaking students as it is for my corporate storytelling students. I encountered this situation twice in the last month.

One was in a Story Theater Retreat here in my home studio, and the other was in a one-day Storytelling in Business workshop for a training company. One of the students was a high-energy female, full of movement and energy. The other was a male student who was more subdued, but equally enthusiastic. In both cases, the “speaker’s smile” was ever present.

I call it the “speaker’s smile” because it was there all the time when they were presenting, but when they were off the stage, the smile came and went based on the topic of conversation. The problem of the “speaker’s smile” becomes pronounced and incongruent, especially in the context of storytelling.

Every story has its highs and lows. If it’s a good story, it will have an obstacle – a problem to be dealt with and overcome. In the telling of the story, if the storyteller’s face is not congruent with the emotion of the moment, the moment seems false. That was the case with each of these students. At the moment of truth in their stories, when they were describing the difficulty they were facing, they both described it with a smile.

Great speaking is first and foremost about speaking the truth. It’s about addressing the most important issues head on. For me, as I’ve matured as a speaker, my ability to be honest and confrontational is what has set me apart from my competition. I tell it like it is with emotion that is congruent. If I’m talking about the unlimited potential of each individual in my audience, I’m smiling. If I’m talking about self-limiting beliefs, I’m not.

During my acting experience, I learned to take on the persona of the character I was playing and to feel and express any emotion in front of an audience. When I made the transition from acting to speaking, at first it was hard for me to show a range of emotions. I thought I had to be positive all the time.

What I eventually realized is that the end result of a motivational speech needs to be positive, but the speech itself has to contain a range of emotions. With the development of The Story Theater Method, I have come to understand how our stories, when portrayed with emotional honesty, have the power to take people to a deep place – a place where they can heal their deepest wounds. Because Story Theater stories are so real, so honest and so visceral, the storyteller allows the listener to experience their pain, so that the listener understands their own story better.

If you have been reading my articles for the last eight years or listening to my CDs, you have heard me say that emotion is the fast lane to the brain.

That means when the speaker feels and expresses genuine emotion that is congruent with the content being presented, it stimulates an emotional response in the listener. The emotional response is called a “sympathetic experience.”

This “sympathetic experience” takes the listener out of their left logical brain and into a more holistic interpretive state where they are simultaneously seeing, feeling, hearing and experiencing your message with head, heart and intuition. During this heightened state of awareness, they are simultaneously in your story and also imagining their own story.

This deep level of connection cannot take place when the person standing in front of them is smiling all the time, regardless of what they are saying. The “speaker’s smile” is like a subtle lie that takes away from the message being conveyed. The listener doesn’t necessarily know on a conscious level why they don’t believe the speaker. They just know that there is something unbelievable about the speaker and they don’t connect.

Please understand, I am all in favor of smiling when speaking. I do it a lot. If you stand there with a sour face and all you do is dump on people, people won’t want to listen to you. The problem is not the smiling; it’s the false belief that speakers are supposed to smile all the time – to always be happy, high-energy and positive.

Do you smile all day long in all circumstances? Of course not. You smile when you are happy or pleased. You smile when your emotional state warrants a smile. In other words, a smile comes from the inside. Rather that stepping in front of an audience and plastering on a smile, feel the emotion of the moment. Let your face reflect your emotion. In doing so, you will always be authentic.

If you are new to speaking, or don’t speak very often, be careful not to plaster on the “speaker’s smile”. You can and must be yourself. Your best shot at becoming a successful speaker is to be real. Speak your truth. Stand in your power and say what you have come to say. Don’t be concerned about pleasing everyone in your audience because that’s not your job.

Smile because you are happy. Smile because you are excited about what you have to say and about the opportunity to share your wisdom with an audience. Smile when a smile is appropriate. At other times, trust that your face knows what to do. Trust that your audience knows how to interpret your authentic emotion. Just trust.

Should you or shouldn’t you script your speeches? The debate is almost as old as “the chicken or the egg?”.

There are some valid points on both sides of the debate … and I’ve been on both sides. Having been on both sides, I’ve come to the conclusion that the benefits and advantages of scripting your speech far outweigh the disadvantages. On the flip side, the disadvantages of not scripting your speech far outweigh any perceived advantages you might gain.

Here are the major arguments you’ll encounter as to why you shouldn’t script your speech:

* scripted speeches don’t sound natural, spontaneous or sincere

* reading a scripted speech prevents you from making eye contact with your audience

Not Sounding Natural

Many presenters who read from a script sound as if they’re reading an essay or an article from the daily paper. They speak in monotone voices and stumble across the unfamiliar words on the page like someone skating on ice for the very first time. To say the least, it’s not a pretty sight … but it doesn’t have to be this way.

The reason most presenters who read from a script sound as if they’re reading an essay is: they are! Speeches are not meant to be written the same way essays, articles or reports are written, but most of the people who write the speeches aren’t aware of the differences between writing for the ear (speeches) and writing for the eye (print). If they did understand the differences, the speeches would sound just as natural as any extemporaneous speech. So the problem isn’t that the speech is written, the problem is how the speech is written.

When a presenter stumbles all over a written speech, you can rest assured that he or she hasn’t spent enough time – or any time – with the speech. And regardless of what the reasons may be for not reading and rereading the speech ahead of time, very few presenters can get away with trying to read a script for the first time while still sounding natural. If, however, the presenter gets familiar with the written text in advance, the delivery will sound far more relaxed and natural.

Eye Contact With the Audience

We’ve all witnessed the presenter who buries his head in the lectern like the proverbial ostrich buries its head in the sand (ostriches don’t actually do this … but I digress). Of course, if the presenter is reading the speech the entire time, he or she will not be able to make eye contact with the audience. And if the presenter isn’t making eye contact with the audience, he or she is not making a personal connection with them either.

But scripting your speech doesn’t mean you have to lose all eye contact with your audience. If you familiarize yourself with the speech beforehand and occasionally look at the speech to keep you on track, you will have more than sufficient time to look at and connect with the audience.

It also helps to make the font larger (minimum 18pts) and to stop the text 3/4 of the way down the page. This way, your eyes won’t travel as far down the page and away from the audience.

Will it take some practice? Of course it will. But if you’re going to be delivering a speech, you’ll be practicing anyway. You will be practicing, won’t you?

When delivering an effective speaking presentation, it means that you are able to communicate effectively your ideas to others and getting undivided attention from your audience.

What makes audience listen to you?

1. Self-interest; Discover their interest. Let them know that you understand their self-interest by making explanations & action plans based from their point of view. Make them the main character.

2. Personal Involvement: involve audience in the process of “finding new knowledge”. Make them as if they found it out by themselves in the process — while you are presenting it. Engaging in an active dialogue with audience is one way to do it.

3. How You Say it: Be Loud & Clear with an Enthusiasm, Confidence & Sincerity. Positive Gestures would enhance your audience attention to what you say.

4. Be Familiar & Friendly; Especially in delivering new or controversial ideas, start your presentation with familiar ideas/ story to avoid resistance, and then you can lead them to where you want them to be with solid references to make them assured why they should receive it.

5. Be Creative; an Interesting & Creative delivery (but still on the roadmap); you can make improvisations which will maintain the audience attention to follow what you are saying until the end of presentation, especially when they are starting to feel unattached to your story.

The point is that you must tell audience: what they need to know based on their point of view, in a process which involved them, make them feel they found it out themselves, with phrases that familiar & attached to them.

A Reminder from the Master

Yesterday, while listening to a recording by one of the true masters of public speaking, Patricia Fripp, she said something in her talk that absolutely blew me into a stunned state, “Your job as a speaker is to be remembered and repeated.”, and then a few moments later, “What will people say about your speech 10 months from now?”

I remember hearing her say the same thing in teleconferences on the Champions’ Edge and at the Get Coached to Speak Champ Camp I attended a few months ago. However, the point did not stick at that time. I was too worried about the mechanics of my speech at the time to really sit down and focus on what the message was in my speech.

Upon contemplating this for awhile, I kept being drawn back into things people have been saying to me the past two weeks. Things like, “what is the point?”, “OK, that is the why but what is the how?”, or “what value does it add.”

How many times in your speech has someone said something like that to you?

We are too Focused on the Mechanics

It hurts, because we do get wrapped up in the mechanics more then the content. That is one of the flaws of Toastmasters. That is one of the reasons why after so many presentations, we only remember the ones that are designed to be “remembered and repeated.”

What lessons can you learn from this?

1. Make sure you have a clear and concise message before you sit down to prepare your speech.

2. Write down the key phrase that you want people to walk away saying after your presentation.

3. Make sure that the key phrase is short, connects to the purpose of the speech, and is something that can be repeated at key moments in the speech without sounding like you are trying to get people to memorize the phrase. Yes, that is tough, but audiences know when you are trying to trick them.

4. Most importantly, know your topic. You are far more likely to have key phrases in speeches that you have internalized then something you have put together at the last minute with little to no background on the subject of the speech.

Remember what Patricia Fripp said, “Speak to be remembered and repeated.”

How will you be remembered and repeated in your next speech?

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When you are speaking, it’s not about you. It’s about the audience.

You see it in corporate presentations, professional seminars, and yes, even Toastmasters clubs… the speaker focusing on themselves and not the audience. This is the death blow for keeping your audience interested in your speech and it will cause people to not want to listen to you speak.

Don’t worry, you are in good company. Every speaker at some point will get an inner focus. It happens when trying to present unfamiliar material, have not internalized the message, or when you are talking about a personal story. Sometimes you just get wrapped up so much into the “You” of the speech, that you forget the “Them,” the audience.

It happens. So what can we do to prevent navel gazing during our pontifications (I mean, speeches)?

1. Internalize Your Presentations –

When you don’t know your material from every angle and point of view, you will not be able to understand the audience’s view of your speech. Practice it, read it into a recorder, put your heart into it, or whatever you have to do know the material….do it. Without a complete understanding, you will spend more time in your own head trying not to step on your lines then you will be delivering those lines.

2. Know the Audience –

Who are you speaking to? Have you interacted with your audience? These are some of the questions you need to answer before speaking. When you don’t know your audience, it makes it tough to know what they want and what they are thinking. When you don’t know that, then you are thinking about that during your speech and it is obvious as you deliver.

3. I / You Ratio -

This is one of the tips given constantly by the World Champions of Public Speaking and Patricia Fripp. When you are transcribing your speeches, count how many times you have said “You” versus “I” in your speech. If you have said “I” many more times than “You”, then the audience might be thinking you have an ego problem, but more than likely you have just done too much navel gazing.

So next time you present, if you think you are not connecting with the audience, you aren’t. The reason you aren’t is because you are too inside of your own head. To prevent navel gazing, internalize, know, say “you.” Connect, connect, connect. That is the fastest way to get out of your head, and make the audience love you.

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If you want to get real action out of your audience during a public speaking engagement, then tugging on their heart strings can help make it happen. This is where your storytelling ability can really make you shine.

Great storytellers like my friends Maggie Bedrosian and Thelma Wells can take a simple set of facts and paint moving pictures in the minds of their audience members with carefully crafted stories.

You don’t have to tell stories when speaking to get emotional response. You can get another two-for-one happy hour special when you ask the right questions. Asking questions not only involves the audience mentally, it can also stimulate many kinds of emotion. Do you remember when you were a child and you could barely get to sleep Christmas Eve because you just knew Santa was going to bring you that special something? This question would stimulate fond feelings in most general public Christian audiences. It would not, however, connect so well with people who do not celebrate Christmas (remember: know your audience).

How about this question, Do you remember doing something really bad as a child? What kind of punishment did your parents give you? These questions would cause the audience to remember bad feelings.

Did you ever have a pet that died, or did you have a friend who had a pet that died? This would undoubtedly elicit sad feelings. If you want the audience to smile, ask them this, Can you remember the most embarrassing moment of your life? Most people will laugh when thinking back to an embarrassment that they felt was a tragedy at the time because one of the definitions of humor is tragedy separated by space and time. So, tell stories while speaking in public and ask the right questions to move the emotional state of your audience.

There are many emotions you can trigger in the audience just by your choice of words. Happiness, anger, sadness, nostalgia are just a few. Knowing your purpose for speaking to a group helps you to pick which emotions you want to tap. When your purpose is known, choosing words to get the desired emotional response is much easier.

Here’s an example of a simple set of facts that a speaker might convey:

“There have been eleven accidents in the past year at the sharp curve which is two miles north of Cherokee Lake on Route 857. Installation of guard rails, warning signs, and a flashing light will cost approximately $34,000. Even though we have not balanced the budget this year, I feel that we should appropriate money for this project. Thank you.”

Here is a little different version that uses emotional appeal to get the message across.

“On July 18th of this year John Cochran was found dead. The radio of his car was still playing when the paramedics got to his overturned vehicle. John’s neck was broken. It was snapped when his car flipped over an embankment. No one here knows John Cochran because he did not live here, but he died in our neighborhood. Most of you do know of the hairpin turn on Route 857 that has been the scene of eleven accidents this year alone and has injured many friends as well as strangers. We need money to put up guardrails, signs, and a flashing light. I know money is tight, but I hope you see fit to find the funds to remedy this situation before the unknown John Cochran becomes one of your loved ones.”

Can you see the difference in these two appeals? The first was simply a set of facts. Facts are important, but they rarely stimulate people to action. The action comes when emotions get attached to believable facts. You can bet the second version of the above story would have the best chance of securing that $34,000.

To create the emotional appeal in the second version of the story, words and phrases were chosen that had emotional power. … John Cochran was found dead. The radio of his car was still playing … John’s neck was broken. It was snapped … His car flipped … hairpin turn … He died in our neighborhood. All these phrases were woven into the original set of facts to create the emotional response of horror about this terribly dangerous turn.

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