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.

and I’d like suggestions on the most common questions speakers ask themselves when preparing to speak. The theme for the book is how your audience can always give you the best answers to all of your questions. Please take a look and add your comments on other questions to add.  TJ

Wisdom of Your Audience

Improving Your Speech

Preparing You Speech

1. How should I ask to be introduced? *

Beginning Your Speech
2. What is the best way to begin my speech? *
3. Should I tell my audience that I am very happy to be speaking to them today?*
4. How many Points should I cover in my speech?*
5. Should I make this a formal or informal presentation?*

Using PowerPoint
6. Should I give a PowerPoint presentation?*
7. How many bullet points should I use per slide? *
8. How many slides should I use? *
9. Is it OK to read from my PowerPoint slides?*
10. Should I read my speech in order to not make any mistakes?
11. Should I use a teleprompter?
12. Is it OK to use notes when I speak?
13. Should I play it safe by avoiding humor?
14. How can I best establish my credibility with my audience?
15. How can I best establish the credibility of my company?
16. Should I stand behind the lectern?
17. What should I do with my hands?
18. Should I walk around when I speak?
19. What should I edit out of my speech?
20. What should I add to my speech?
21. Should I use stories in my presentation?
22. Should I be more concise?
23. How big a problem are my “ums” and “uhs?”
24. How can I show how serious I am about my speech topic?
Delivering Your Speech

25. Won’t I lose credibility if I talk about my failures?
26. How long should my speech be?
27. Should I tell ‘em what I’m gonna tell ‘em, tell ‘em, and then tell ‘em what I told them?
28. How big of a disaster is it if I can’t answer a question during a Q and A period?
29. What is the most likely speaking disaster I could encounter while presenting?
30. How should I end my speech?
31. When should I thank my host, introducer and audience?
32. What points from my speech will stick with my audience?
33. How will I know if my speech “worked?”
34. Is it OK to use handouts?
35. Will I steal my own thunder if I email my PowerPoint presentation to people in advance of giving my speech?
36. How do I get my audience to think I’m smart?
37. Should I use special effects in my PowerPoint?
38. Should I use the jargon of my audience?
39. Should I rehearse and for how long?
40. What if there is no time to rehearse?
41. I’m not a technical person, is it OK if I don’t use the slides the right way?
42. Who/what should I look at when speaking?
43. Should I sit or stand when presenting?
44. Who should be my role model for speaking?
45. How should I use modern technology to enhance my speech?
46. Is drawing on white boards and charts too old fashion for modern audiences?
47. Should I use a microphone when speaking to an audience?
48. How can I make better transitions?
49. Are you looking at my hair/makeup/teeth?
50. Will I seem more professional by keeping my body still and planting my feet?
51. Is it a danger to use more than one example?
52. Is it wrong to use more than one story to make a point?
53. Is it bad to be redundant?
54. Is it bad to be redundant?
55. Does my speech flow?
56. If my allotted time is cut, what should I eliminate from my speech?
57. Is it OK to speak faster if I am running short on time?
58. What do I do if I feel I am losing my audience?
59. What’s the worst thing that can happen during my speech?
60. Should I tell jokes at the beginning of the speech to loosen up the audience?
61. If I’m more comfortable holding a pen in my hands while I speak, is that OK?
62. What happens if I make a mistake and say the wrong thing?
63. What If I forget where I am going in my speech?
64. How can I recover from a major blunder in my speech?
65. How can I get a standing ovation?
66. Will I sound more credible if I speak with a lower voice?
67. Will I sound more credible if I speak with an even tone to my voice?
68. Is it OK to use props?
69. Should I tell my audience that I am sick/my plane was late/I didn’t get a full night’s sleep?
70. How can I get invited back to speak again to this group?
71. How can I increase my sales to the group I am speaking to?
72. How can I get my audience to rush up to me after my speech?
73. Is it OK to have a drink before I speak to calm my nerves?
74. Should I show my audience that I am well-organized by telling them at the beginning the outline of my whole speech?
75. Will reinforcing my key points in text on PowerPoint make my audience retain the points more easily?
76. Should I interact with my audience at the beginning by saying “good morning” and then saying “I can’t hear you” to get them to try again with more energy and enthusiasm?
77. Is it OK to drink water during a presentation?
78. Should I take questions during my presentation, or ask people to hold them until the end?
79. Is it safer to weed out the bad questions by asking people to submit their questions in written format?
80. Is it OK to ask questions of audience members?
81. How long do I need to stay around after my speech?
82. Should I show passion by speaking LOUDLY?
83. Should I maintain my professionalism by avoiding all personal observations out of the speech?
84. What bugs you the audience the most?
85. Do I need to memorize my speech?
86. How do I know what messages and topics will be most interesting to my audience?
87. How do I know which messages and topics resonated with the audience the most after the speech?
88. Don’t great speakers have to be taller, older, richer, deep voiced than I am?

89. How will I know what my audience will remember? *

Here is a recent podcast I did with PowerUp English, an Asian public speaking blog. The focus is on making presentations more memorable.

http://www.powerupenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=7

Much has been written about the excellent James Surowiecki book Wisdom of the Crowds, a look at how markets, in various forms, are routinely better than experts. Zagat has built a whole publishing empire based on this single principle. Index funds routinely beat most mutual funds on Wall Street. And yet, very few people think to apply this principle when it comes to public speaking.

I contend that nearly every aspect of a presentation can and should be subjected to the wisdom of the audience—specifically the speaking audience. But how, as a practical matter, would this be done?

Let’s say you have to give a new sales presentation to 100 prospects on Thursday. Well, on Tuesday, round up five colleagues in your office and give them your presentation. By “give them” I mean stand up and deliver them; don’t give them the text. Afterward, ask questions.

1. What slides does your audience remember? Any slide your audience doesn’t remember, then listen to their wisdom. Your slide is worthless—throw it away.
2. What messages does your audience remember? These messages work, so move them up and expand them in your speech.
3. Did you audience enjoy and remember your introduction where you talked about how happy you were to be there and about the boring history of your company? If not, then get rid of it—the wisdom of the audience has spoken.
4. What details and factoids does the audience remember? Any details or factoids that were in your speech but not remembered need to be either presented in a new and better way, or they should be eliminated from the presentation.
5. Where did you bore your audience? Get rid of it.
6. Where did you confuse your audience? Go into more detail here.
7. What does your audience want more of? Add this.
8. What does your audience feel compelled to do after hearing your speech? If it’s not what you wanted them to do, then you have big trouble.
9. What information would they have needed to hear from you in order to make them take the actions you wanted them to take after hearing your speech? Then add this to the speech.
10. How can any aspect of this presentation be improved? Add accordingly.

In addition to having a small group of colleagues give you feedback on your presentation before you give your actual speech; there is nothing wrong with asking a select number of audience members from your actual speech to give you feedback on these questions too. That way, you can refine your speech to make it better and better, the more often you have to give it to different groups.

It constantly amazes me that large multi-national corporations will spend billions of dollars on marketing research based on questions asked of housewives in malls and unemployed people with nothing better to do than answer a telephone survey. And yet the most valuable form of marketing research is often right in front of an executive and is ready to present itself for free, just for the asking. Isn’t it time you tapped into the wisdom of your audience?

Google is trying to compete with Microsoft in every arena, including presentation software. Google recently launched a competitor to PowerPoint. Many pundits gave Google’s version low markets in a point by point comparison to PowerPoint. Now, Google is making updates and revisions to its presentation software. Here is an analysis of the recent Google changes. I think the so-called inadequacies of Google’s presentation software are overstated, primarily because I think that most of the gizmos in presentation software hurt rather than help audiences. But most speakers can help themselves by knowing how to work with any of the major presentation software applications.

If you are resolving to improve your health in the New Year by losing 5-10 pounds, why not resolve to improve the health of your presentations?

Here is a speaker’s New Year’s Resolution:

1. I resolve to focus on the needs and interests of my audience, rather than myself.
2. I resolve to not bore.
3. I resolve not to “wing it.”
4. I resolve to rehearse.
5. I resolve to treat every audience as important.
6. I resolve to come up with fresh stories and material for my audiences.
7. I resolve to try to make each speech a little better than the last one.
8. I resolve to communicate 3 important messages with each audience.
9. I resolve not to associate with anyone who reads bullet points off of a PowerPoint slide.
10. I resolve to watch and learn from other great speakers.

Let’s face it; you are an enabler—and so am I. When you and I sit through someone’s awful, boring, bullet-point filled PowerPoint Presentation and pretend to pay attention and listen, we are enabling another lousy speaker—and we are encouraging him or her to do the same thing again and again.

This has got to stop!

It’s time to take the 120-90-60 PowerPoint Pledge. Here it is:

If in the first 120 second (2 minutes) of a speech
A presenter shows slides that are 90% text based or more
And looks at his/her slides 60% of the time or more,
Then I walk out the door.

By my own accounting, this would put more than half of the business speakers in the world in front of an empty room—every time. The message would start to sink in.

For the record, I am pro-PowerPoint. I use PowerPoint 3-5 times a week in my presentations and trainings. But the way to use PowerPoint effectively is for the speaker to focus exclusively on audience members, use the slides to show visuals and not text, and to focus on one idea at a time in each slide.

Of course it’s not practical to walk out on your boss’s presentation, your weekly staff meeting, or a presentation from an important partner or client. But let’s face it; we all have opportunities to walk out on certain presentations. For example:

1. Large conferences where there are numerous presenters speaking in different rooms at the same time. Walk out on the ones who break the 120-90-60 PowerPoint Rule.
2. Vendors who are taking up your valuable time. If a vendor breaks the 120-90-60 PowerPoint rule in front of me, I simply stand up and say “thanks, I have an emergency. I would be happy to read any written materials you can leave behind.” And in fact there is an emergency; I want to stop my impulse to strangle the vendor for wasting my time with a boring PowerPoint presentation.

All of us, as frequent audience members, have the power to shape the greater business culture’s ways of speaking. If you don’t take a stand (and walk out the door) you will have nobody to blame but yourself when you become bored out of your mind when listening to future PowerPoint speeches.

If you are ready to sign the 120-90-60 PowerPoint Pledge, then please leave just your name in the comment button below.

Edwards Gets Demerits for Tardiness on the Trail –Headline from NY Times 

 John Edwards may be a compelling speaker (I think so), but he does himself a tremendous disservice by showing up late to most of his audiences. Here is an article from last week’s New York Times lambasting Edwards for showing up, on average, 45 minutes late to every speaking appearance in

Iowa. Great speakers understand and respect the psychological mood of their audiences. And keeping an audience waiting for more than 5 minutes is a great way to put an audience in a lousy mood. My advice: do WHATEVER it takes to start and end your speeches on time. This is one skill that George Bush (whatever you think of his modest speaking skills) learned to master a long time ago.