I love listening to country music and there’s a song by Brad Paisley called “Water” that’s getting a lot of airtime (you can watch the video for it at the bottom of this post). It’s a fun song about his love of water and it chronicles his water-related experiences from when he was a child up until his adult years. Now one would think a song like this would remind someone of summer vacations or spring break, but I’m reminded of a conversation that I witnessed during a management training course I took eight years ago.
Transitioning From Toastmaster to Professional Speaker
I’ve had a number of people ask me lately about how to go from a Toastmaster to someone who makes money speaking. Many of these people want to speak on their area of expertise while others are looking to speak about speaking. Those in the former have it a little easier because the key there is to just continue to develop your expertise while you graduate as a speaker to different audiences. Those in the latter have a more challenging road ahead because speaking to a Toastmasters audience is significantly different than speaking to other audiences — a fact which is often overlooked when speaking about Toastmaster-related topics. So I’m going to focus on the latter group for this article, but the former will definitely get some benefit from this too.
The Most Deadly Presentation Mistake
Procrastination can be deadly to your career no matter which field you are in. In fact, it can literally be deadly in some cases. So why do so many people procrastinate? Well, there are two common reasons: 1. they associate some sort of discomfort towards the thing they have to do & 2. they have other things they’d rather be doing. So given that so many folks feel discomfort just at the thought of speaking to groups, it should come as no surprise that not adequately preparing for a speech is the most common (and most harmful) public speaking mistake.
Preparing for a talk is a lot of work. You need to research your topic, write your speech and then practice and tweak it. So it’s very easy for this task to either slip through the cracks or only get a half-hearted effort. And that half-hearted effort often results in a sub-par talk which just reinforces the speakers’ discomfort with public speaking. So how can you avoid this trap? Simply realize the costs of not preparing and compare them with the benefits of preparing.
How to Deal with Rude Audience Members
It’s unfortunate, but not all audience members treat speakers the way we’d like to be treated. People have a very short attention span and it shows. Instead of listening to the speaker like we were taught to in school, people are having side conversations or playing with their BlackBerrys in the middle of your talk.
This topic came up in my public speaking class last night and we had an interesting discussion about it. While many speakers think that this is caused because they are boring the audience, the truth of the matter is that some people are just rude and/or inconsiderate. I’ve seen this happen in a variety of situations and here are just a few examples:
Don’t Let BlackBerry Addiction Ruin Your Presentation
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.
Why We Feel Inadequate
I’ve noticed a trend lately that has started to bother me – too many people telling us that there’s something wrong with us. I don’t know about you but I’m getting tired of it. Everywhere I turn, I see ads or people trying to get me to go along with their scheme to correct the problems in my life. And it’s everywhere from TV and radio to magazines & newspapers to even social media.
I have no problem with people out there trying to make an honest living. But it just seems like there are a lot of people out there with solutions looking for others to push their solutions on – and these people may not even be in need of these solutions.
Public Speaking Success: How to Give a Great Speech
Nothing strikes fear into the heart of someone more than telling them they need to give a speech. Whether it’s a speech for work, a speech to promote their business or a speech where they’re volunteering their expertise, most people panic when they learn they’ll be facing an audience.
It’s no surprise that that this scares people — so much could go wrong. They could embarrass themselves, make a mistake, say the wrong thing, lose their train of thought or commit countless other blunders that they fear could result in not getting the sale, not getting the promotion or other failure.