Honing your Skills
- Create a list of speaking goals and a timeline.
- Internalize your message in your gut.
- Read every book you can find on making speeches.
- Constantly edit and improve your speech after every speaking engagement.
- Most people who think they are great speakers aren’t.
- Constantly look for ways to add spice to your presentation.
- For the most part, speaking does not require learning a tremendous amount of difficult, new skills, but rather, it necessitates taking what you already do well in one area and applying it in another.
Preparing for Questions in your Interview
- Determine the four or five most obvious questions that will come up and one or two which would be the hardest for you to answer.
- Prepare a thought-out message that answers the most basic questions. Use answers as a bridge back to the main message.
- When you are being interviewed by a reporter, it is always a good idea to ask, “Who else are you interviewing?”
- Some reporters will appreciate if you ask who else they are interviewing.
- They will sense that you are trying to be as helpful as possible and that you want to give them a unique perspective.
BY TJ Walker
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Speaking of Roger Ailes, he truly is the master of the sound bite, especially when there is invective involved. If you want a weekly or daily tutorial on great sound bites, do what I do, I have set up a free Google news alert to send me an email every time Roger Ailes is mentoned in the media. Typically, I am rewarded with some golden nugget where Ailes has skewered some hapless CNN or CNBC executive. I might not agree with Ailes very often, but you can’t challenge his status as king of the sound bite.
More insights from TJ Walker
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YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED !
TJ Walker & Jess Todtfeld along with The Speaking Channel team wants your questions about speaking to audiences, presenting, or
speaking to the media. Have a burning question?
We want to answer it.
Send questions to: jess @ speakingchannel.tv |
READER QUESTION:
What advice do you have for those unfortunately moments when your mind is tired and you just plain go blank - I always bring notes as a backup but I hate to look at them. Recently I have found myself reading more and more because of nervousness and a tired mind that can't remember what I was supposed to say next.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Trish
RESPONSE:
Trish,
Great Question. We are big advocates of notes, but not in the way you probably think.
Many people write pages and pages of text. Others put together many note cards. Both of these will send a signal to your audience that you're not paying full attention to them. That means they can tune you out, check the blackberry, day dream. Not exactly what you're going for.
Here's what you want to do:
-Write out a bullet pointed list of the order and outline you'd like to follow.
-Make sure it is on just one sheet if you can.
-Get the bullet points down to the shortest amount of words. You want to be able to glance at it,
and know what you want to say and where you want to go with it.
-Print it in a large font so you can see it from many feet away.
-Feel free to hide an extra copy in another location so you can be moving around the room, and checking your notes without anyone noticing.
As for nervousness, we find the more you focus on the audience and their needs, the less you focus inwardly. Think about what it's like to be an audience member. You're just thinking "please don't bore me" or "If you were going to read, you could have sent this to me as an email and saved us all an hour."
As for having a tired mind, more sleep could be in order. If you are like me, that rarely happens. As long as the audience doesn't KNOW you feel tired or unfocused, you're ok. Talk about the details on your bullet pointed list. People will appreciate that more than staring at words on a PowerPoint, or you reading to them.
One last tip, take the bullet points and practice the speech out loud at least once.
The way we see it, when you first write the bullet points, this is your first draft.
If you practice the speech, that is essentially your second draft. There will be a lot that pops into your mind about what you'd like to say or change. (Helpful so you don't seem like you have a tired mind later.)
When you fix up your bullet pointed notes, that is your third draft.
Not doing this, in my opinion, is like showing your whole organization a document that you couldn't bother to spell check. The benefit to you, is that it will GREATLY reduce nervousness, and make you seem like you're not "tired."
Please report back and let me know how this works.
-Jess Todtfeld
Speaking Channel Managing Editor
These questions will also be posted on www.SpeakingInsider.com
Send your questions to Jess@SpeakingChannel.TV
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