Does anyone know of an expert in starting ad networks? I am looking to start an ad network focusing on web sites that deal with the following topics: speaking, public speaking, presentations, powerpoint and media training. If you know of anyone, please have them contact me at tj@tjwalker.com.

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience.” Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

How Can I be More Concise?

Your PowerPoint Administrative Specialist: “Limit your presentation to no more than 10 slides!”

Your Boss: “Strip out all of your stories, examples, and anecdotes. Just stick to the facts and you can slim down your presentation.”

Your College Speech Professor: “Research shows that no speech should last longer than 18.5 minutes.”

You: “The more concise I am, the sooner I can sit down, the less likely I am to receive any criticism for having gone on too long.”

***

Your Audience: “Concise? Why don’t you actually try to tell us stuff that’s interesting and useful? If you do that, the time will fly and we won’t be staring at our watches. If your speech is a concise 9 minutes long but you are so boring that we tune out after 30 seconds, then the next 8.5 minutes will seem like three hours. So what did you really accomplish? Guess what? We never complain about someone NOT being concise if they are really interesting, even if they talk for three hours.”

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

Is it OK to ask questions of audience members?

Your Corporate Communications Director: “Why on Earth would you want to do that?”

Your Marketing Director: “Too risky, what if they say something that contradicts our policies? Besides, there is no time for this foolishness.”

Your College Speech Coach: “You are there to provide your expertise, not lead a discussion. Don’t ask questions of your audience.”

You: “It seems a little scary asking audience members questions. What if they say something I wasn’t expecting or that contradicts what I’ve said earlier? I’ll look like a fool!”

***

Your Audience: “We thought you’d never ask. Sure, it would be nice if someone actually cared about what we thought for a change. As long as you don’t get annoyed at us for our answers and if you cut us slack if we can’t come up with an answer, then it’s OK to ask us questions. Questions can spice things up a little because it can get a little boring just listening to you. The one thing you know is that if we are answering your question during the middle of your speech, we aren’t sleeping, daydreaming or playing with our Blackberries.”

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

If I’m more comfortable holding a pen in my hands while I speak, is that OK?

Your Speech Coach: “Yes, it’s OK to hold a pen, or you can put one hand in your pocket.”

Your Self-Esteem Coach: “If it makes you feel better than it’s OK. Go ahead and hold a pen or a lucky rabbit’s foot.”

You: “I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I’m more comfortable holding a pen while I speak.”

*** 

Your audience: “Huh! Why would you hold a pen? Are you planning on spontaneously saying something so brilliant that you need a pen to write down your own quote while you speak? Are you a pompous a#$? If you’re going to hold a pen, why not a broom or a rake? Better yet, why not leave the toys on the table and just talk to us—hands-free?”

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

Should I tell jokes at the beginning of the speech to loosen up the audience?

Your Speech Writer: “Yes, this will be a great way to get the audience on your side.”

Your lawyer: “What? Are you crazy? Do you want to get us sued?” Don’t ever use humor at anytime in your speech.”

You: “Yes, I’d like to start off with a good joke—this will relax me and make me more comfortable for my speech.”

***

Your Audience: “Who are you, Henny Youngman? There’s nothing worse than someone trying too hard. That’s the problem with starting your speech with a joke—it’s too obvious. We know it’s coming and so do you. Sure, you might get a chuckle form us begrudgingly, but so will bad puns. You’d be a lot better off saying something funny in the middle or the end of your speech. We aren’t expecting it then—that’s why we’d be even more pleasantly surprised.”

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

What is the most likely speaking disaster I could encounter while presenting?

Your Corporate Communications Director: “Your fonts will be inconsistent in size, shape and color. We, as a company, will look like idiots!”

Your Marketing Director: “If you forget to mention our seven key corporate marketing messages that were signed off on by the CEO last year, this speech will be a wasted effort!”

Your Audio/Visual Technician: “A bulb could burn out on the PowerPoint Projector.”

You: “I could forget some of my transition statements and I will look like a complete idiot. Everyone will laugh at me!”

*** 

Your Audience: “The biggest disaster is that you will have robbed me of thirty minutes of my life that I can never get back. The biggest disaster is nothing…that is, you said nothing interesting, nothing memorable or nothing useful and you wasted my time. Thanks for nothing!”

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

Should I outline all of my key points at the beginning of my speech for the benefit of my audience?

Your Speechwriter: “Yes, this shows order and structure.”

Your Public Affairs Director: “Yes, this is a very logical way to proceed.”

You: “Yes, my audience will be impressed with how thoroughly I have prepared, how logical I am, and the well I have planed.”

***

Your Audience: “We hate outlining. You remind us of a boring school teacher when you do this. When you tell us about all of the points you are going to cover later in your speech you are reminding us that now would be a good time to check our email.  We won’t miss anything important because you’re going to cover it later, right? It’s OK for college teachers to outline for us because we had to write everything down in class. Why did we write down what the teacher outlined? Because that professor was going to test us two weeks later and if we failed the test we would get kicked out of school and have to go wash dishes for the rest of our life. Our college professors could bore us to death with data dumps and outlines and we were motivated to listen and write it all down. But you, my friend, don’t have that power over us. Instead of outlining, just tell us each point in a manner that is so interesting, visual and memorable, that we can’t forget even if we tried. Then, there will be no need to outline.”

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

Will reinforcing my key points in text on PowerPoint slides make my audience retain the points more easily?

Your Director of Marketing: “Yes, research shows that if people see the words in print and hear them, they are more likely to remember the points than if they simply heard them.”

Your PowerPoint Specialist: “Don’t be a jerk! Everybody knows you put all of your key concepts in bullet points on a PowerPoint. Otherwise I’d be out of a job!”

You: “I’ll feel a lot more confident if all of my key concepts are up in bullet points on the screen. This will make life easier for me and my audience.”

***

Your Audience: “If we wanted to read, we’d stay at home and curl up with a good book. Or we’d close our office door and read the newspaper on our computer screen. We are more than capable of reading but we’re not quite sure why we’d want to if you are going to say the same stuff. What’s easier for you to remember, the face of someone you just met, or their name on a business card? Obviously, it is the person’s face. So if you want us to remember something, don’t take the lazy person’s route and throw up text. Instead, use a photo, graph or chart. Create an interesting visual and we won’t forget. Sadly, there’s nothing particularly interesting or memorable about text up on a screen, no matter how interesting the topic.

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

Should I rehearse my presentation and for how long?

Your PowerPoint Presentation Creation Specialist: “Rehearsal sounds like a nice idea, in concept, but we still have to re-design the last ten slides.”

Your Corporate Communications Director: “Sure, let’s rehearse if there is time. But we are still waiting for approval on the slides from corporate HQ and I don’t expect those until the morning of the presentation.”

You: “I absolutely have every intention of rehearsing. But shoot, it’s midnight and we are still changing the font size for the bullet points on the presentation and the speech is tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM and I haven’t slept in 2 days. Looks like there is no time for rehearsal. Besides, I want to seem ‘fresh.’ I might seem stale or canned if I rehearse.”

***

Your Audience: “We don’t care if you rehearse or not, just don’t rehearse on us. If you don’t know what slide goes where, or how your transitions work, or how your clicker operates, guess what you are telling us? You are telling us that you and your one hour of time are a hell of a lot more important than the collective hundred hours of our time as audience members. You are telling us to drop dead. OK, we will; right in front of you. You now get to speak to a dead audience. Are you happy now? You had better be great when you present to us if you want us to remember you and to love you. In theory it’s possible you could be great without rehearsing, and maybe Tiger Woods could have become a great golfer without ever practicing. Yeah, right!”

The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

Should I use special effects in my PowerPoint?

Your Corporate Communications Director: “This is the MTV generation. Of course we have to have special effects. Get with it!”

Your Director of Marketing: “Yes you need some special effects and music. In fact, this will be the perfect time to unveil our new TV advertising campaign.”

You: “Wow, if I could have some eye-popping special effects, that will really make my presentation sizzle. This will also take the spotlight off of me and make my whole speech go down better.”

***

Your Audience: “Do you have any idea how many chumps we’ve seen standing in front of us apologizing for their audio or video not working in their presentation? Or worse, they have some PowerPoint page flying in from the top and then dissolving at the bottom like we’re going to be impressed. You know who impresses us? Steven Spielberg impresses us. George Lucas impresses us. You and your special effects in a PowerPoint don’t impress us. Do you know what would impress us? That’s if you actually prepared something interesting to say and then you said it, rather than wasting 15 hours preparing some cheap special effect gimmick that probably won’t even work.”