Presentation Skills from a Tour Guide in Mexico
I just returned from a vacation to Cancun, Mexico, where I enjoyed fun, food and . . . learning presentation skills from unlikely sources: timeshare sellers, tour promoters, street vendors, restaurant servers and a tour guide! It was the tour guide at the Mayan ruins, Chichen Itza (the picture above, using an app called Waterlogue) […]
Gift Books for Presenters
With the holidays fast approaching, you may want to gift yourself a book on public speaking skills. I’ve read many books on public speaking, but only a few more than once. Consider adding to your library (physical or ebook) one of the 5 books on public speaking that I own and have read more than […]
The Call-Back: A Comedy Technique for Speeches
Would you like a simple speech technique that will create a closer connection with your audience, help them remember your material, and possibly get a laugh? Try using the “call-back.” The call-back is a stand-up comedy term that means to refer to an earlier joke that got a laugh. For example, at a recent Humor […]
Golden Opportunities for Speech Material
I was minding my own business, reviewing my speech notes at a high top table on the ground floor of the RiverCentre Convention Center last week. In a few minutes, I would be heading upstairs to the ballroom to deliver the closing keynote for an association conference. A scruffy-looking man reeking of alcohol approached me. […]
Tailoring a Keynote: Making the Material Connect
People in your audiences want to feel special, to feel that you understand them and their needs. You can create a presentation that connects with a particular audience by tailoring your existing content to connect with them. Would you like to “look behind the curtain” and see my process? It may give you some ideas […]
The Secret Memory Booster in Public Speaking
Would you like to know one technique that can help you better: learn your presentation? remember your presentation? facilitate your audience’s learning and recall of your material? Yes? The powerful technique is to use body movement and gestures. Perhaps you may recall learning gestures to a song as a child, or helping children learn something […]
A Winning Speech Structure: 1-3-1
“Life’s . . . a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” These are the despairing words uttered by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, after hearing of Lady Macbeth’s death. I’ve often thought they could apply to some speeches I’ve heard. Sitting in the audience, I’ve despaired over the loss of my time, […]
7 Tips on Using Speech Notes Effectively
One of the biggest fears that people have about public speaking is the fear of forgetting what they are going to say. Using notes can reduce that fear greatly, but at the same time create a barrier to audience engagement. Here are 7 tips on using speech notes more effectively so that you can engage and […]
Back to “School” for Speakers!
It’s back to school time for kids, but what about you? Are you taking intentional steps to improve your speaking skills, to start a speaking business or to grow your speaking business? While there are excellent books on speaking skills and on building a speaking business (one of my favorite is World Class Speaking by […]
3 PowerPoint Photo Tips (Video)
You can take your PowerPoint slides from ordinary to awesome with 3 simple tips shown in this video (4:22): 1. Make your picture BIG! 2. Remove the picture background 3. Match the font of your text to a color in the picture Bonus Tip: If you want to grab the colors from something online, you can […]