If You’re Reading Your Speech, Make that Easy! Why read? Because you’re practicing a talk, and because You’ve got better things to do with your time than memorize a speech that you’ll only give once! I make that argument in Public Speaking Tip 51: If You’re Reading from Notes When You Deliver a Speech, Read with Read More
Writing a Speech or Crafting Remarks
Public Speaking Tip 98: For a Successful Presentation, Get Your Attitude Together Before You Prepare Your Speech
If you’ve explored 100 Top Public Speaking Tips, you know that many of them are not about formal presentations. And while small talk… job interviews… running effective meetings… and writing killer thank you notes are all important aspects of public speaking, the day may come when you deliver a formal, stand-up, “podium” presentation. If and when that happens, you can create Read More
Public Speaking Tip 34: Lead Your Audience
Lead Your Audience Like a Tour Guide When you stand before an audience to give a speech, you take on a responsibility that’s somewhat like that of a wilderness tour guide. Your audience is putting themselves in your hands. They’re about to venture into new territory — a series of ideas that may be unfamiliar to them — Read More
How Joe Biden’s Rhetoric Rocked the 2016 Democratic National Convention
It’s rare for me to feature another coach’s work in these “pages” — but Canadian speaker coach Lauren Sergy‘s annotation of Joe Biden’s rhetoric was irresistible! Even if you’re not a fan of classic rhetoric (or of Joe Biden!), you’ll smile as Sergy’s pop-ups name the devices that help make this speech so powerful. And by the way, Read More
Public Speaking Tip 63: Keep Your PowerPoint Short, Sweet, and Simple
Yeah, yeah, PowerPoint sucks. This has become a kind of business meme in the last few years, but come on, folks: Why hate on PowerPoint just because people use it badly. (And by “PowerPoint,” I mean Keynote and Prezi, too.) PowerPoint is just a tool. I mean, would you hate on a hammer because you saw somebody drive a Read More