Tuesday, December 13th, 2011 at 3:30 PM
Most speeches could be made 200% better if the speaker did more KISSing.
My boss in college said, “KISS means Keep It Simply Simple.”
Below is one of the most basic speech writing formulas. However, many do not use it and may take the audience on a meaningless safari and leave the audience saying “Huh? What was the point?”. Those who do use this are easy to follow and audience’s appreciate the clarity.
1. Grab attention with the intro and preview your speech.
Read these articles for more info:
2. Have 2-4 main points and label them
If I am talking about overcome fear of public speaking, I have 4 keys. In the presentation I’ll say, “Key #1: Act Confident”. Audiences can easily follow you when you have main points and label them. See this article for more info.
3. Review the points and conclude with a story or call to action
I call this a home-run ending. Your circle your points and head for home plate with a story or call to action.
Simple speech formula and follows the rules of KISS. Results can be outstanding.
Learn more in this public speaking training.
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 2:17 PM
“Yesterday, I made a stupid mistake.”
What’s going through your mind?
You may be thinking:
“How?”
“What happened?”
“Why?”
Etc.
I just created suspense. You want to know the details. Suspense is the key to being a good storyteller. Suspense keeps our audience on the edge of their seats desperately wanting to know more.
Don’t forget that suspense is like tension. Its very important we relieve that tension through the story otherwise it will irritate the audience. What was my stupid mistake? I failed to save a Word document before I shut down the computer. Sixty minutes down the drain!
Put suspense into your stories and you will become a very effective at storytelling.
Friday, July 29th, 2011 at 9:27 AM
It was my night to baby sit. My three month old daughter lay on the couch next to me sleeping. Sitting in front of me was the laptop playing a public speaking training video.
To my daughter the voice from the video was a like gentle ocean waves verbally rocking her to sleep.
After 30 minutes I decided to grab a drink of water. Careful to not wake the sleeping princess, I pushed pause on the laptop.
My daughter awoke with a start. She looked around and gave a nice three point speech as to why she did not enjoy being awakened.
The pause or silence startled her and she awoke. That is the power of the pause and the end of a quiet evening.
You can use the pause to keep your audience wake and to wake them out of a glassy eye, speaker induced coma.
Patricia Fripp said,
Perfect your pause. Deliver your punch word and then pause…and pause…and pause. Give your listeners time to digest what you’ve just said. Get comfortable with silence, and don’t be tempted to rush on or fill it with “um’s.”
Good speech coaches recommend and use the power of the pause. Insert many pauses into your presentation. Not only do they help your content sink home, but they are much appreciated mini breaks to the sound of our droning voice.
A moment of silence woke the baby up. Public speaking pauses will help you keep your audience awake.
