Public speaking, media training, presentation training, crisis communications
Archive for category Professional Speakers
Rewrite Questions To Suit You -Media Training
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, Media Training, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers on July 21, 2011
After you have heard a reporter’s question, hold it up to the light and rewrite the question in your own head to make it easier for you to answer it. Note: this is not the same thing as ignoring the question and saying whatever you feel like. The art in this process is finding a way to rewrite the question so it is less threatening to you, while at the same time not appearing to be dodging the question entirely. Read the rest of this entry »
Speak in Sound Bites
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, Communications, Media, Professional Speakers, Video on March 30, 2011
Ronald Regan was a great speaker who knew how to captivate his audience. This clip shows how he used sound bites to get quoted and be remembered.
Forget The Unrealistic Role Models
Posted by TJ Walker in Fear of Speaking, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers on March 25, 2011
A frequently discussed phenomenon involves teenage girls who look up to to 6′ 3″ 90 pound super models as role models. These genetic freaks are obviously not ideal role models for girls with normal bone structures. The results? Anorexia and bulimia.
Something similar happens when it comes to my clients who are trying to improve their public speaking and media skills. When they hear the audio recording of their voices, they often form a strong and passionate dislike for their own voices. But it’s not because there is anything wrong with their voices. The real problem is their standard of comparison.
How Do You Keep From Going Stale?
Posted by TJ Walker in Audio, Professional Speakers on March 12, 2011
Presentation Training Tip: If you get invited to give a speech, then speak. If you get invited to a reading, then read. (However, great authors don’t read at their own book readings, they tell stories instead.)
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Social Speaking, Speaking Competition, speech writing, Story Telling, Student Speak on March 4, 2011
Presentation Training Tip: If you get invited to give a speech, then speak. If you get invited to a reading, then read. (However, great authors don’t read at their own book readings, they tell stories instead.)
SPEAKING TIP OF THE DAY: Cliches work great with the media but make you sound unintelligent when delivering a speech.
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, Pitching, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers on March 3, 2011
SPEAKING TIP OF THE DAY: Cliche?s work great with the media but make you sound unintelligent when delivering a speech.
FORBES.com: PowerPoint Is NOT a TelePrompTer
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers on March 2, 2011
One of the biggest misconceptions about PowerPoint is that it can and should be used as a TelePrompTer for a speaker. A TelePrompTer is a machine that newscasters use to read their scripts while looking into the camera. Read more from TJ at FORBES.com
Post a comment about your Worst Public Speaking Experience Ever and you will win access to my $300 Online Presentation Training School
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, Pitching, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills, Voice, Workplace, Worst Speaker of the Day on February 23, 2011
That’s right, if you post a summary of your worst public speaking experience right here, I will send you an all-access pass to my online, interactive public speaking course—no strings attached. I’d like to hear about your horror stories.
When to Admit Mistakes
Posted by TJ Walker in Fear of Speaking, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills on February 19, 2011
Most speakers go to one of two extremes when it comes to making mistakes in front of audiences.
1. Instantly calling attention to mistakes by apologizing, wincing, and generally beating yourself up, or 2. Putting on a front of perfection and denying that you have ever made a mistake about anything, ever, under any circumstances.
In the first case, your audience is distracted not by your mistakes, but by your reaction to your own mistakes. You slow down the presentation because audience members are now focusing on your reaction to your own mistakes. You might get points for humility, but you lose points because fewer messages are delivered.
Presentation training advice: Age is nothing but a number. Everyones goal should be the same as a speaker.
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills on February 18, 2011
Presentation training advice: Age is nothing but a number. Whether you are a Fortune 500 company CEO or a junior high school student preparing for a school speech your goals should be the same. As a speaker you want your audience to walk away thinking of you as memorable speaker, who was engaging and fully understood the key points you were trying to get across.
Rapport Is Key
Posted by TJ Walker in Fear of Speaking, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers on February 18, 2011
When speaking, building rapport with your audience is crucially important. Average and below average speakers spend all of their time focused on writing and rewriting their content. Great speakers care about content too, but they realize that the first order of business is building rapport with an audience. Once you build rapport, your audience becomes receptive to your content. Without rapport, none of your content will sink in.
Your concern for rapport should affect everything you do from the moment you walk into the room where you will be speaking. Greet as many people as possible who are coming into the room to hear you speak. If it is a new audience for you, and the group is fewer than 30 people, then greet every single person and try to have a brief conversation with them. Talk substance with a few of them. Then, try to weave their comments into your presentation.
FORBES.com: Dare To Be Different -Public speaking analysis
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills on February 18, 2011
There is great comfort in mediocrity when it comes to public speaking. It is easy to joke around with your colleagues about how you “hate” speaking in public and that you “just want to get through it.”
To read the rest of TJ’s thoughts visit FORBES.com
Public Speaking Tip of the Day: The presidents honored on Presidents; Day (Washington and Lincoln) gave much importance, time and effort to all of their speaking and public appearances. Presentation counts in the 18th, 19th and 21st centuries.
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, Audio/Video Technology, Best Speaker of the Day, Body Language, Government & Politics, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills on February 18, 2011
Public Speaking Tip of the Day: The presidents honored on Presidents; Day (Washington and Lincoln) gave much importance, time and effort to all of their speaking and public appearances. Presentation counts in the 18th, 19th and 21st centuries.
Jerk Face Media Move of the Day: Republican Congressman Steve Womack Files Amendment to Stop Funding Obama’s TelePrompTer
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, Politics, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills on February 18, 2011
The Arkansas Republican has since removed his amendment once he realized that he was basically being an incredible jacka*@!
Read more of TJ’s analysis on FORBES.com
Spell It Out When You Are Speaking
Posted by TJ Walker in CEOs/Financial, Pitching, Professional Speakers on February 17, 2011
When you are speaking to colleagues and other peers within your industry, the tendency is to use lots of acronyms and initials, instead of speaking out the entire name or phrase. This saves time and makes you seem like a knowledgeable insider, right?
Wrong!
How to develop useful and interesting ideas for your next presentation -Quora answers
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, public relations, Public Speaking Skills, Voice, Workplace on February 16, 2011
Can Your Audience See You?
Posted by TJ Walker in Communications, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills on February 14, 2011
I was recently at a convention for professional communicators and public relations people. All of the speakers and all of the attendees were in the business of communicating messages well — and getting paid for it.
And yet I was struck by how many speakers seemingly didn’t care if their audience could even see them. One speaker had recently gone through leg surgery and didn’t want to stand for his hour long presentation — understandably. But, he then proceeded to sit down behind a table from a position that was impossible to see by one third of the audience because he was hidden by a large wooden lectern.
In one Sentence – Bono : Presentation Advice
Posted by TJ Walker in Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills, Video on February 14, 2011
Great leaders can speak on a subject for hours, but they also know how to summarize their message in one or two sentences.
Presentation Tip of the Day: You don’t have to make every single audience member love you or even a majority of the audience members love you. But if 95% are chanting that they want you to resign, be fired, or leave the country, chances are, it’s time to find a new line of work.
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, blogging, Body Language, Pitching, Politics, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Story Telling, tip of the day, Training Community on February 12, 2011
Presentation Tip of the Day: You don’t have to make every single audience member love you or even a majority of the audience members love you. But if 95% are chanting that they want you to resign, be fired, or leave the country, chances are, it’s time to find a new line of work.
Presentation Training Tip of the Day: If you just practice in your head at your computer, what seems like a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation will actually turn into a 50 minute presentation in front of the audience.
Posted by TJ Walker in Analysis, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Technology, tip of the day, Training Community on February 11, 2011
Presentation Training Tip of the Day: If you just practice in your head at your computer, what seems like a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation will actually turn into a 50 minute presentation in front of the audience.
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