One of the problems many speakers face is that they think that just because they have a gigiantic screen that they always need to be showing something. Wrong! There are times when you want your audience focused on the screen and times when you want the audience looking at yourself. When you want the audience focused on you and your message, go to a black slide so that the audience isn’t distracted by what is showing on the screen behind you.
Many times an inexperienced speaker will resort to reading a joke he found on the internet and it will usually flop. What they need to do instead is to take that joke and turn it into a believable story and then add the vocal variety of a story teller.
Here’s how to do it:
#1. Find a funny joke or story.
Is it funny to you? If not, don’t use it.
a. Personal experience. (This is the best source of humor.)
b. Research: TV, books, etc.
#2. Write it down, but KISS.
Ink it – don’t think it. Keep it short and simple.
#3. Put it into your own words.
Once you find a story you like, re-write it in your own words and vocabulary so it becomes your story.
#4. Make it realistic.
Tell it as if it were true. Your audience came to hear you and your experiences. Make them believe what you’re saying. If your story is built around a totally impossible situation, like a conversation you had with a little green man from Mars, then introduce it this way. “The other night, I had the strangest dream. I dreamed a UFO landed in my back yard.”
#5. Localize Your Humor
You know the audience, what they do, what they are interested in and where they are located. Make your story local.
#6, Practice, practice, practice.
A. Practice into a tape recorder, practice to your friends, practice going to and from work in your car. And when you think you’ve got a story pretty well perfected, give it the final test. Tell it to your family at the breakfast table. That’s the greatest challenge of all.
B. Master that punch line.
The climax, the dramatic ending must be carefully written and always delivered exactly the same way. Memorize it. Memorize it so well that if you wake up in the middle of the night you can shout it out without the slightest chance of error.
#7. If the joke works, put it in your “joke file.”
It’s easy to find humorous material if you’re looking for it, but it’s also just as easy to forget it. So, keep a file where you keep those funny stories. The computer is the ideal place to save these stories. You could also use a 3 x 5 card file or any other method you choose.
Whenever you make a presentation, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is, “Where should I stand for most impact with the audience?”
There are three basic positions:
#1. Behind the lectern
#2. In front of the lectern, but still able to see the entire audience
#3. Roaming around the space in front of the lectern
If you’re stuck behind the lectern it creates a divide between you and your audience and it also probably means that you are going to rely extensively on your notes.
If you are in position #3, you have the advantage of getting very close to your audience, but it also means that many times some members of your audience are looking at your back and not your face.
In the picture above, Carl shows us position #2 which is one of the ideal positions. He’s in front of the lectern, but everyone in the audience can still see him easily. You can still roam a bit, but only for effect and 95% of the time you want to go back to this position.
The next time you’re working on a Power Point presentation, read Garr Reynolds book, “Presentation Zen.” It will give you the basics for changing your text based presentation into one which uses primarily visuals to convey your message. I highly recommend it.
Here’s another example of having a screen which is too small and too many words on the screen. This picture comes from the St.Louis Banjo club. In this case it’s appropriate to only put words on the screen, but don’t try to put ALL the words on one screen. Make the fonts large enough for people in the back to see and use a 2nd or 3rd screen if need be.
At a recent presentation, this presenter made a typical PowerPoint presentation, which could have been improved with a few simple changes.
1. Don’t turn your back on the audience to read your slide.
2. Use graphics, not words – if possible.
3. If you do use words, make them short phrases, not long sentences which you read to the audience.
4. Use a remote so you don’t have to be standing by the laptop to go from slide to slide.
5. Bring your own table to hold your laptop.
Face the laptop toward yourself and use a long VGA cable to connect to your projector.
6. Use Spell Check on your Power Point presentation.
Thanks to Robert Graham (robert@grahamcomm.net) for these tips.
Few things can bond and establish a connection with a group like learning everyone’s name quickly.
I routinely do this with groups of up to 15, and the look on their faces, when 10 minutes into the workshop
I can call everyone by their first name, is priceless. Here’s how to do it:
1. Obtain a participant list ahead of time and read through the
list out loud several times.
2. During the beginning of your program (this works best in
small workshops), have each person share their name, what they
do, what they would like to learn from our session and any
other personal details they would like to include.
3. As each person is speaking, say their name (to yourself) a
few times and make any associations that are helpful. (I once
worked with a guy named Clark who looked a lot like Superman.)
4. In addition to listening to each person’s introduction,
silently recall the names of each person who has spoken
already.
5. As quickly as possible after the introductions, begin using
their names when calling on people.
6. For extra credit, as they reveal things about themselves
(personal details, passions, family information,
accomplishments, guilty pleasures), write them down. That way
at a break or lunch, you have an immediate conversation
starter about them: “So what was it like to grow up in Dubai?”
or, “When did you graduate from UCSB?”
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Note from Tom – I’ve seen the entertainer Kathy Griffin walk around with a yellow notebook before her
speaking gig talking to the audience and writing down notes about audience members.
I recently attended a funeral which had approximately 300 people in the audience. At one point in the service the minister asked if anyone would like to tell a story about the deceased? All they’d have to do is raise their hand and a microphone would be brought to them. It was if you were back in school and the teacher had asked a question where no one knew the answer. It was very quiet. Finally, someone raised his hand and in the end five people were willing to say something. I know why the other 295 were quiet – they had that fear which haunts so many of us when we are asked to speak in front of a large group.
I’d encourage you to take a class, join Toastmasters or do whatever it takes to get over that fear. I’d like you to say something nice about me when it’s my time to die.
I was coaching a new speaker and encouraging her to make time every day to work on the speech.
“Get up early, work on the speech 15 to 30 minutes every day and before you know it, your speech will be done.” She replied, “But I already get up at 4:15 AM.”
Assuming she’s busy ALL day long, then here are a few tips to work on your speech when you don’t have time.
1. Keep your topic in the back of your mind – even when you’re doing other things.
2. Keep pen and paper with you ALL the time. As you get an idea for the speech – write it down. A modern version of this is to use a digital recorder to capture those ideas.
3. Put all those slips of paper and ideas in a folder with the title of the speech written across it. You can also transfer your digital ideas into a computer folder.
4. When you do find some time, take out all those slips of paper and computer files and organize them into a coherent speech.
