Love me or hate me

Fellow speaker,

When are speaking to a professional corporate audience at the request of a company, your objective is to make an impact and get the audience to think differently.

Not so likeable,

Tim

Speaker goals

Fellow speaker,

World Champion Speaker Ed Tate suggests you should want to:

• Get rebooked
• Get a strong reference
• Get additional business inside the organization you are presenting to

Always try first to get rebooked but follow up with the other goals if they are not able or willing to rebook you.

Goaling,

Tim

Getting the good stuff

Fellow speaker,

When interviewing people in preparing for your speech, interview people at different "levels".  Interview top performers, average performers, and "rebels" who do things their own way and may be seen as "bottom" performers.  This will give you a "balanced view" of the company and let you know about any issues you didn't find out in your discussions with your meeting planner.  It will also let you in on "dirty little secrets" that people know about in the company.

Talking it over,

Tim

Three Buyers, One Meeting

Fellow speaker,

According to World Champion Speaker Ed Tate there are three types of buyers:

• Economic buyer (most important) - person(s) who is paying for the meeting and the speakers
• Meeting planner - person(s) who are setting up the meeting and the speakers for the meeting
• Audience - people who are attending the speaking event

Before doing your speech, meet with each buyer to make sure your speech delivers what they want.

Buying in,

Tim

Story practice

Fellow speaker,

To get comfortable with your story, tell the story to as many people as possible.  Tell the story using a normal, conversational style.

Talking story,

Tim

The point of the story

Fellow speaker,

When shifting from telling a story to talking to the audience about the story, put a little pause after the story.    This allows you to shift out of "story telling mode" and into a more casual, talking style.

Making the shift,

Tim

Set 'em up!

Fellow speaker,

To get your audience interested in your story, it helps to have "set up lines" in your story.  Set up lines in your story create a question in the audience's mind that they have to listen to later in the speech for an answer.  For example, you could be telling a story, and suddenly have someone in the story say, "Wow!  That was great advice you gave!  It really changed things for me!" and then the audience would have to wait for later in the speech find out what the "great advice" was.

Setting 'em up,

Tim

Use the name

Fellow speaker,

When telling a story where there is a lot of back and forth talking, create names for the characters, and use the names in your story to help the audience keep track of who is talking in your story.

Naming names,

Tim

Use audience to develop your workshop

Fellow speaker,

When giving a workshop, use training games.  Try out different types of games in your speech and see what games work with your audience and what don't.

Trying it out,

Tim

Open hecklers up to your audience

Fellow speaker,

If you get a heckler in your audience, and you have most of the audience on your side, then open up the heckler's points to the audience's opinion.  And the audience can shut the heckler down.  For example, ask the audience, "Does anyone else have a problem with what I am saying?"

Shutting 'em down,

Tim

Quick quotes

Fellow speaker,

After you get at where you will be speaking, walk around and talk to people.  Listen for short, quotable phrases.  Then ask the person if you can quote them in your speech.

Quoting,

Tim

warm then raise

Fellow speaker,

To get your audience to raise their hands, warm them up first.  Once the audience is comfortable with you, then they will be comfortable with raising their hands in response to your questions.

With hand up,

Tim

It's a performance

Fellow speaker,

Work to make your speaking performance interesting and engaging so that people want to hear what you have to say.

Performing,

Tim

Just say it

Fellow speaker,

Leave out all the "stage directions" in your story.   Instead of describing all the things that are going on (e.g., "he looked down", "she mumbled", etc.) show these things with your body.  For example, look down when talking.

Showing,

Tim

Switch it up

Fellow speaker,

Every eight minutes or so, change your speaking approach.  It might be with silence, a sudden question, a different way of presenting, or something else.

Changeably,

Tim

I expected that

Fellow speaker,

Whatever happens onstage, don't act surprised.  Continue on as if you expected that reaction and build the reaction into your speech.

Adaptable,

Tim

Interview prep

Fellow speaker,

To get yourself ready for an interview, practice asking yourself questions such as "What do you talk about?  Why?  What's the most interesting audience reaction you've ever had?  Etc."

In the spotlight,

Tim

That reminds me of

Fellow speaker,

When a question comes up from the audience that you didn't expect, be prepared.  Use the phrase "That reminds me of" and move from the question you were asked to another, related subject that you are prepared to answer.

Answering,

Tim

Dimensions of speaking

Fellow speaker,

World Champion speaker Ed Tate scores his written out speech according to audience participation.  He writes a "1" for the places in the speech when he's talking alone, a "2" for when he's talking with audience participation and a "3" for when he's talking with audience participation while some kind of visual (such as Powerpoint) is going on.  He then tries to balance out his speech so he doesn't bore (too many "1"s) or tire out" (too many "2"s or "3"s) his audience.

Balancing it out,

Tim

Look the part

Fellow speaker,

If you can tie a look to a particular emotion in your speech, you can get your audience to respond to you every time you give that look to them.

Responding,

Tim

Fitting word to deed

Fellow speaker,

One way to get your audience to know what you want them to do is to use a specific gesture with each word you want your audience to repeat.  So if you want the audience to say "swim", you use a swimming gesture onstage and then gesture to the audience.  You have to make very certain when doing this that you have successfully educated your audience about what each gesture means to make this work.

Gesturing,

Tim

Making truth

Fellow speaker,

Getting the audience to repeat your message makes your message sound true to your audience since they said it themselves.

Truthfully,

Tim

Early and often

Fellow speaker,

If you want your audience to do something, make sure you make it clear early in your speech what you want your audience to do.  If you want a "call and response" reaction, where you call something out and your audience responds, very early in your speech get the audience in the habit of responding to cues you give from the stage.

Up early,

Tim

Train your audience

Fellow speaker,

If you want your audience to respond to what you say, make sure you make it clear what you want the audience to do.  So if you want the audience to repeat your words, make it clear with gestures and demonstration that you want your audience to repeat your words.  In the speech "One of Those Days" World Champion Speaker Ed Tate repeats the words "one of those days" many times in his speech.  After after he has repeated it a few times, he gestures to the audience while he says it.  The audience then knows that they are expected to say "one of those days" along with him.  Later Ed stops saying it and the audience members say it by themselves when he gestures to them.

Training,

Tim

Knowing the future

Fellow speaker,

When you question your audience on certain subjects, you will get very similar responses from audience to audience.  For example, if you ask your audience, "What does the captain of an airplane say over the loud speaker?" they will get certain answers, and when you ask the question to a different audience, you will get the same type of answers.  Knowing that the audience will always answer in a certain way allows you to set up your speech to reply to the answers you KNOW you are going to get.

Mind reading,

Tim

Both sides now

Fellow speaker,

When interacting with the audience, make sure you interact to both sides of the audience and not focusing on one side over the other.

Balanced,

Tim

Audience hero

Fellow speaker,

To keep the attention and trust of your audience, tell interesting, dramatic stories about people in the audience.  Make sure the audience member story comes out positively and in the best possible light.

Lighting the audience,

Tim

Write this down

Fellow speaker,

When you come to something in your speech your audience needs to understand, say "Write this down" just before making your important point.

Writing,

Tim

You MUST participate!

Fellow speaker,

Approach audience participation as a necessary part of the speech.  From the beginning of your speech ask the audience to do or say something that directly relates to your speech.

Motivating the audience,

Tim