With vast amounts of information just a few finger strokes away, the audience you are speaking to can sometimes feel that they are trapped in Borges’, “The Library of Babel”, where all of the information that has ever existed or will ever exist could reside somewhere in the library. It is your job as a speaker to provide your audience with the “Crimson Hexagon”, which provides them a catalog to which it all makes sense.

I was reminded of this while listening to a recording of a speech by Patricia Fripp. What she does that is so amazing, is to take information about what the audience is learning that day and make it relevant to their career and their lives. Where many speakers in the industry share platitudes that don’t leave the room, a master like Fripp shares stories that make a point and are reinforced with techniques that the audience can implement in their daily lives.

Though a speech consisting of motivational platitudes might get you a “good job” and a pat on the back, in Toastmasters. If you are looking to move beyond Toastmasters and into the professional speaking world, then you need to be able to provide value from the stories in your speeches that are reinforced with techniques that the audience can implement.

Providing techniques in your speech was the lesson shared this week from Craig Valentine on the World Champion’s Edge. Craig shared his thoughts on how to implement this in your speech, but after listening to Fripp, I had an additional thought on the mindset required by a speaker to make this happen.

In order to be a successful speaker like Craig and Fripp, you need to be able to be a filter for your audience and provide relevant stories that are reinforced with techniques that can enhance their lives. Today’s audiences have vast amounts of information available to them from libraries, research databases, and search engines such as Google. You would think that with all of this information available, that everyone would weigh their ideal weight, be rich beyond their wildest dreams, and be in a relationship with quite a catch. This is where a good speaker comes in and saves the day.

A good speaker, that has practiced and has been well coach, can be the “Crimson Hexagon” for an audience that has been inundated with too much information. What this means, is that as information becomes more widely available in more formats than ever before, the role of the public speaker becomes more important. It will be your job, if you so choose, to help audiences take the vast amount of information available on the topic, and make it interesting and relevant to their lives.

So as you are preparing your next speech, study the topic with intensity, find the relevant stories that illustrate the topic, and deliver those stories accompanied with techniques that enhance the lives of the audience. Be a relevant and interesting information filter, and you can become a high paid and much sought after speaker, like Valentine and Fripp.

Subscribe to the post comments feeds or Leave a trackback