Archive for the ‘Corporate Communication’ Category

Have You Improved In the Last 30 Years?

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

I went to a business conference recently to see a colleague give a major presentation. During the course of the conference I saw speakers of every skill level. Some were dynamic, interesting and had good eye contact. My associate gave a particularly strong speech – one that was memorable for both its content and passionate delivery.

However, most of the speakers were deadly dull. Presenter after present stood up and read speech after speech. One person had all of her notes drop to the floor where they soon become out of order. Anther speaker awkwardly stopped and started a few times. Other speakers failed to get close enough to the microphone; hence the audience couldn’t hear anything they said.

Focus On Your Own Interesting Stuff

Friday, December 21st, 2007

“How can I find more interesting things to say in my speech?”

I hear this all of the time from clients. Often, they are looking for a quick fix, like a web site or a reference book. Sadly, these are useless to most speakers.

Most people have interesting content i.e. stories that they use in real life conversations all of the time – they just don’t realize it. Part of becoming a better speaker is constantly being on the prowl for interesting stories, analogies, explanations and vignettes that you or other colleagues of yours use. When you hear them, make a mental note; better yet, make an actual note on paper or a computer screen.

The Answer Is Right In Front of You

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

I just spent two days helping a team of corporate executives rehearse major presentations. The company was in the process of trying to sell itself for a bundle of cash to a new group of private equity investors.

We were in the company’s conference room—complete with fancy overhead projector, big screen, nice conference table, and a wireless mouse and keyboard. Speaker after speaker clicked the wireless mouse to advance the PowerPoint slides. For the most part, this worked well. But every once in awhile, and executive would use the scroll button excessively and the slides would advance two at a time. Or the speaker would hit the mouse twice and advance the PowerPoint twice. Oops!

Thin Walls – Tough Interviews

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

The best part about doing media interviews for radio programs is that you can do them anywhere.

The worst part about doing media interviews for radio programs is that you can do them anywhere. By that I mean you can find yourself in situations where distractions erupt right in the middle of an interview. Recently, I was being interviewed by phone for a radio station in Los Angeles. The host was asking me to critique the State of the State speech by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In the Blink of an Eye

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

When you stand up to speak you only have a split second, two to be exact, before your audience makes permanent opinions of you. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Blink,” he documents a study of college students who were asked to rate their college professors teaching skills after viewing a video segment of each teacher for only 2 seconds. (That’s right, a mere two seconds, NOT 2 minutes) Then, the students were asked to rate each professor again; only this time it was after having been taught by the professor for an entire instructor.

Four Ways to Data Dump

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

What do you do if you have an incredibly large amount of data that you must present to an audience, but you are limited to a strict time amount of, say 10-30 minutes?

By far, the absolute worst mistake you could make is to do the following: cram every fact you can find into a bullet point and then on a PowerPoint and then race through that PowerPoint in front of your audience. You can guarantee that no one will remember anything you say if you try this technique (though you will be in good company, since this is what most bad-to-average presenters do).

The Pause Solution

Friday, October 19th, 2007

There aren�t many big problems in life that can be solved by doing nothing, but fortunately, that is the solution for many speaker woes.

Do you find yourself saying too many uhs, ums, ers and you knows when you are giving a presentation? The solution is to do nothing, i.e., pause. By pausing throughout your presentation, you will correct many of your problems.

Big Words = Big Sleep

Saturday, October 13th, 2007

Get the latest TJ Walker video tutorials at the Speaking Channel homepage, or add to your arsenal of speaking tips and tools at the Media Training Worldwide Store

The Media Tortures Those Without Speaking Skills

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

Members of the media have become increasingly demanding toward the subjects they cover. Members of the mainstream media seemingly take great delight in exposing a big shot’s inability to manipulate the media.

Case in point, look at this story on the front page section of the January 9, 2006 New York Times sports page on New York Jets general manager, Terry Bradway. If you think that just because you are not a politician or the CEO of a big public company that the media will somehow take it easy on you, just read below and you will be disabused of that notion.

Create A Core Speech

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

Many people are caught off guard when asked to give a 20-30 minute speech. Most of my clients act as though this is some weird, special request, as if the topic were �What Should U.S. Foreign Policy Be Toward North Korea?�

The reality is that most of the time when we are asked to give a speech, it is on a topic on which we are experts. Typically, most people are asked to speak on subjects that they work on every day for weeks, months, years and even decades. Hence, Bill Gates is asked to speak about the computer industry. Henry Aaron is asked to speak about baseball. You are likely to be asked to speak about your mutual fund, if you run a mutual fund.