Many people own a BlackBerry, iPhone or other mobile device that allows them to check email, surf the web, check email and update their status on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter from virtually anywhere. Of course that anywhere could be the car, the airport or even while sitting in the audience when you’re giving a speech.

Using these devices all the time is a new, yet increasing, trend – I remember sitting next to a woman at an awards dinner that ignored everyone else at the dinner because she couldn’t put her BlackBerry down. It’s no wonder that these devices are referred to as “CrackBerries” because some folks simply can’t resist checking them every couple minutes.

Even in the business world, people are checking and responding to email with their mobile devices during meetings and presentations. While this has become common (and even acceptable) behavior in some organizations, it’s still rude. And as speakers and presenters, it can be a complete distraction – especially if you’re not exactly comfortable with public speaking. So what can we do?

Before Your Talk:

It’s common for many speakers to remind their audiences to turn off the ringers on their cell phones prior to their talks, so this is a great opportunity to also ask them to refrain from texting or using mobile devices during the presentation. If you’ve got someone introducing you, you could include a line in your introduction such as “and please refrain from using your BlackBerry or other mobile device during the presentation as it can be a distraction for the presenter.” You could also mention that it’s rude if you’d like since someone else is reading it for you.

If you don’t have someone introducing you (maybe you’re giving a presentation at work), then you could use a little humor by saying “I know you’ll be tempted to play with your BlackBerry during my talk but if you could just hold off until I’m do ne with my talk, you’ll get the most out of it and won’t be a distraction to others in the room.”

During Your Talk:

Sometimes we miss that opportunity to ask our audience to be respectful before our talk or we have a nervous person introducing us that forgets about our introduction all together. If the latter happens, you can always make a joke at the beginning like you would if you didn’t have someone introducing you. If you’re speaking and you notice people whipping out their BlackBerrys on you, then you need to address it.

The first thing you could do is make a joke out of it while singling out the person. You obviously don’t want to do this in a work environment if the person being rude and disrespectful is your boss or someone else above you on the food chain. But in most cases, you can ask the person to look up a fact from your talk, check on the status of a big event (even a sporting event) or ask them to check the stock price of a company that has something to do with your talk. In other words, you’re politely telling them that you noticed they’re playing with their toy while they were supposed to be listening to you and you’ve made the rest of the audience think twice about doing the same thing.

If you notice a lot of people pulling out their devices and typing away during your talk, you could call for a break. Again, try not to say something like “since no one is paying attention to me anyway, let’s take a break.” Instead, try “it looks like a lot of you have some important messages to check on. Why don’t we take five minutes so that those of you that need to check your messages can do so and then when we come back, we’ll be able to focus more on this issue.” Doing this makes them realize (hopefully) that they were being rude and disrespectful but without you looking bitter.

After Your Talk:

So you gave a talk and people in the room were too busy checking email. Do you feel hurt and want revenge? Email them this article (just click the link at the top that says “email this to a friend”) so they’ll understand that it’s not appropriate to be ignoring the speaker to check email. If you’re truly evil, you could use the person’s boss’ name as the sender of the email, but I don’t condone such behavior (even though it’s probably well deserved).

You could also approach the person (or people) but then you’re more likely to get into a confrontation with them. In that case, you’re probably better off returning the favor when they give a speech (just kidding) or emailing them this article from “a concerned friend” (not kidding).

As speakers and presenters, our talks are always prone to distractions and other problems. It comes with the territory and should be expected. The best thing you can do is let it slide and move on with your life making a mental note to ask the audience to give you the same respect during your talk that you would give to them. Life is too short to let small things like this get to you so just feel bad for the person being rude and be glad that you know better. And if you really need to, email them this article using their boss as the sender with the note “please don’t do this again, it was disrespectful.” Hey, if it makes you feel better – who am I to stop you, right?

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If you want to put your audience to sleep then go through the typical motions of putting together a speech without thinking much about why you’re there and who you’re speaking to. If you want breathe life into your audience and capture their attention, then you need to add one critical ingredient to your talk – passion.

No, not that kind of passion – the passion I’m talking about is an excited interest in what you’re talking about. Passion and excitement are contagious – just try it out in everyday conversations. When you add it to your speeches, it has a similar effect on your audience. If you’re excited, some of the people will become excited and start paying closer attention to you. Then, almost like a virus, that excitement and interest spreads to the other people in the audience. As people starting paying close attention to you, the people sitting around them subconsciously think to themselves “hmm. if that person is listening, maybe I should as well.” So as more and more people in the audience notice the people around them paying close attention, the effect spreads until it reaches most (if not all) members of the audience.

Keep in mind that the audience has to be somewhat interested in or able to relate to what you’re talking about for this to work. If they don’t understand your jargon, disagree with your message or are simply not interested in your topic, you’ll have a tougher sell.

So how do you speak with passion? You need to develop a real interest in your topic. If you’ve had a loved one suffer from an ailment and were given the chance to speak to increase awareness in prevention of that ailment, you could easily speak with passion on that topic. The reason is that you believe that what you’re saying is important and can help your audience. The most effective salespeople believe deep down that what they’re selling will help their prospect. You need to believe that whatever you’re speaking about will help your audience.

Now what if you’re not really interested in your topic? Well you really have only two choices. The first is that you can become interested in your topic by learning more about it and finding some aspect of it that you can relate to. Once you find one area that you’re interested in, you’ll be motivated to learn and start learning more interesting facts about your topic. It’s like when you form an opinion on an issue – you start seeing evidence all over the place that supports your opinion. You can also get excited about the idea of teaching your audience or sharing your knowledge.

If you can’t find something about your topic that you’re interested in, then you’re other option is to choose another topic that you are interested in. Depending on your situation, you may not be able to veer too far from a particular topic. If that’s the case, then you need to tie the topic into another topic that you’re actually interested in. Many effective speakers can use analogies to sports or activities they enjoy to get excited about a topic. So if you love golf but hate public speaking, you could give a speech on “How Public Speaking is like golf” and focus on the aspects of golf and tie them into public speaking. You’ll really be giving a speech about golf, but you’ll tie each point into an aspect of public speaking.

As audience members, we like listening to speakers that are interested and excited about their topics. So if you want to be good speaker, look at it from the audience’s viewpoint – what are they hoping to get out of your talk? This simple exercise will make your presentations exponentially more effective.

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In part one of this article, we talked mainly about the opportunities that exist within your own Toastmasters club to push yourself as a speaker. Most people that join Toastmasters don’t venture beyond their clubs, so they’re missing a whole new world of opportunity in Toastmasters for improving their speaking skills.

So here are some ways to flex those speaking muscles outside of your home club:

6. Visit other clubs

Speaking at other clubs is surprisingly more difficult than you might expect. I realized this back in 2003 when I was toastmasters-success-ten-tips-to-become-presidential-distinguished-part-1/”>President of my club and visited a friend at another club. I had given 15 speeches at the time and was used to doing the President’s welcome at my club, so I never felt nervous speaking at my club. But when I got up to do table topics at this new club, I actually felt a little nervous. The room was set up differently, there were new faces and even the lighting was much different.

Speaking to the same group week after week (or month after month) gets you used to that group. So shock your speaking muscles by visiting another club and participating in the meeting.

7. Be a contest master for a speech contest

While you can do this for your own club, it’s even more effective when you do it at the area level or higher. This role requires you to follow some strict rules when it comes to introducing speakers –more so than the Toastmaster of the day at your club. But you also get to do something that is both fun and different which is interview the speakers while the judges are tallying up their scores. These skills are different from table topics and call also help you with job interviewing and if you have the desire to be a reporter.

8. Be an area governor or other district officer.

Being a district officer helps you in a number of ways. First, it does create a perception that you’re a good speaker and experienced Toastmaster (otherwise you wouldn’t be in that position) and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how closely people pay attention to what you say. But it does a lot more than building your confidence as it forces you to do things like visit (and speak at) other clubs as well as district meetings and events. Again, different crowd and different topics work those speaking muscles in new ways.

9. Give a TLI session

This is a great opportunity to take your speaking to the next level because you’re actually conducting a training session. This means that you need to transfer useful knowledge to your audience – so you can’t take the easy route and just share a story, unless there’s a lesson in it. Since these sessions are primarily officer training, you’ll need to make sure that you’re well versed in the role you’re talking about as you’ll be required to think on your feet for the Q&A session at the end. This is a great way to bring your speaking to the next level.

10. Present at a district conference.

This is what I believe to be the best opportunity for a speaker to grow within Toastmasters. It’s the closest you can get within Toastmasters to giving a speech as a professional speaker – many professional speakers present at district conferences – so if you’re considering that route, you should definitely try this. While some people limit themselves to Toastmaster topics (“How to be the best ah counter,” etc…), many people use this opportunity to give a speech on a topic that’s of interest to members of Toastmasters. You might even get lucky and have someone in the audience actually offer to pay you to give your speech at their event.

So these are just some of the ways you can take your speeches to the next level within the Toastmasters organization. Of course speaking outside of Toastmasters is a whole new ballgame. But that’s another topic for another day.

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Last year, I did a presentation at a Toastmasters District Conference about how one can take their speaking to the next level. I’ve since been invited to give this talk to various Toastmasters Clubs (if you’d like me to speak at your club, please contact me) and I’ve learned that a lot of folks within Toastmasters are surprised at how many opportunities they have within the organization to push their limits as speakers.

I’ve put together a list of ten things you can do within the Toastmasters organization toastmasters-how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-toastmasters-experience/”>to prevent your growth as a speaker from plateauing. Remember that doing the same thing over and over again (such as giving a five to seven minute prepared speech to your club each month) will only let you grow so far. While you’ll grow the most by speaking outside of Toastmasters, here are some ways to push yourself on your path to your DTM.

1. Try out the different roles

Don’t just stick to prepared speeches and table topics. Offer to be a timer, joke master, ah counter, etc… so that you can try new things. Each role requires you to use a different set of speaking skills so try them all.

2. Be the Toastmaster

This is the ultimate improve role – you never know who will show up, how the speeches will go and what sudden changes might happen. On top of that you need to welcome guests, introduce speakers and roles and comment on everything as you transition from role to role. This will keep you on your feet, pull you out of your comfort zone and test how well you can deal with change on the fly.

3. Take an evaluation role.

An evaluation is a lot like table topics except for one big difference – you’re delivering criticism. Being able to deliver criticism is tough – many experienced people in management and leadership roles struggle with this. You not only have to deliver constructive criticism in a manner that encourages the speaker to keep going, but you’re doing it in front of an audience. Personally, I think this is the toughest role within Toastmasters – but it’s also the one that will give you the most benefit.

4. Compete in a speech contest

There are two main differences between a speech contest speech and a regular manual speech. The first is that the timing is critical – no matter how wonderful a speech you give, if you’re even one second over the time limit, your speech gets disqualified. The second is that your speech is judged against the other speeches in the contest. The time limit is interesting because I’ve seen people go over ten minutes OVER their time limit (yes, I’ve actually seen someone take 17 minutes to do a 5-7 minute speech) and outside of Toastmasters, going over the time limit can be an a big no-no.

As for the judged part, you need to convince your audience (or the subset that’s judging your speech) that yours is the best. In the world of professional speaking, you need to make sure that the audience enjoys your talk as well as the person that hired you to give the talk likes it – so there’s a similarity there.

5. Become an officer

Being an officer is one of the best things you can do as a Toastmaster. In addition to the professional experience that you can gain within each particular role, you’re often given impromptu speeches that can push you outside your comfort zone. The Treasurer may need to stress the importance of paying dues on time, the Vice President of Membership may need to motivate people to invite friends to a guest night or the President may need to communicate a new policy that the club will be following. The bottom line is that club officers often need to give speeches that require authority and that is a lot different than giving a prepared speech about your recent vacation.

In part 2 of this article, we’ll cover some ideas that you get to venture beyond your own club.

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