Toastmasters International has been the most influential organization in my personal and professional development. Over the years I have been a member, I have become more confident, more action orientated, and better able to accomplish the goals I have established for myself. With that being said, there is one trap that Toastmasters has created and I wonder if you have fallen into it yourself.

What is the trap?

Imagine for a moment that you are in a presentation outside of a Toastmasters meeting. As you sit there listening to the speaker, what do you notice?

• Is the speaker pacing the room in a way that is annoying?
• Does the speaker laugh too hard at his or her own jokes?
• Did the speaker point directly at someone in the audience?
• Was the speaker using ums, ahs, you knows, and other filler words?
• Did the speaker not have a clear opening, body, and closing?

If that is all you picked up from the speaker, then you have fallen into the trap.

The trap is expecting every speaker to speak like a Toastmaster.

As a Toastmaster, you learn a system for speaking more effectively. The Toastmasters system makes you more confident, effective, and better prepared as a speaker. What the system also does is create a trap that makes you believe that every speaker has to speak like a Toastmaster.

The secret to being a respected speaker is not that you have eliminated filler words, but that you have changed the lives of the audience for the better.

If you have a desire to become a professional speaker, then know that the person that is writing the check is not deducting money for each um and uh. They are paying you to make a lasting impact on the lives of the audience. This can be done with or without the techniques taught by Toastmasters.

I was reminded of this fact when I was reading a public speaking advice blog. The writer of the blog was critiquing one of the most highly paid coaches and speakers in the world, Marshall Goldsmith. In his critique, he talked about the bad habits Marshall had and how it distracted from his effectiveness as a speaker.

Having read Marshall Goldsmith’s bestselling book, I was interested, so I watched the video the blog referenced:

Was laughing at his own jokes annoying?

Did he not follow all of the “rules” of public speaking?

Yes, but that video changed my life for the better. After the first few moments, it didn’t matter what habits he had. All that mattered is that I am far better off in life after watching the presentation. That is more than I can say from many technically perfect presentations I have seen.

Do we need to continue to improve our speaking habits?

Yes, but the most important part of the speech is the message. Focusing on the techniques can be a trap for many Toastmasters and loosening up a little on “the rules” could be good for us all.

Sitting in a training class, I found myself starting to wonder about the point of the class. We had an agenda, workbooks, and trainers but the point was slipping away. You could see the attention of the audience slip and the trainers begin to go on to autopilot. What was one thing that the trainers could have done to get our attention from the start and keep it through the two days of training?

Ed Tate in one of his lessons on the Champions Edge shared with me a technique that gets the audience interested in your presentation, and keeps them engaged in long speeches or training sessions. Before we get to the lesson, let me share with you how our facilitator started the class I attended.

She first reviewed the agenda for the next two days. After reviewing the agenda, she gave an introduction to the HR department and talked about the resources that the HR department had available for managers. Though the speaking was pleasant, it didn’t get my attention or keep me engaged. I have attended many classes, presentations, and workshops where the opening did not compel us to be engaged. Not engaging the audience reduces the value of the information you will share and makes it more difficult to sell your message over the length of the presentation.

The lesson that Ed Tate shared was to sell the benefits of the training at the beginning of the class. Don’t review the agenda, which only describes the content of the training, but share what the expected outcome of the training will be on the participants.

Think of how this could have been accomplished in the class I attended recently:

“At the end of this training course, you will have the tools to save at least an hour a week that you would have spent looking for the information we will share with you. In one hour, we will share with you nine HR pitfalls that managers trained in avoiding, have saved 10 million dollars of litigation expenses for our company and they will help you keep your. Managers that have taken this course previously, have saved the company over three million dollars in expenses related to employee medical affairs.”

In order to capture the attention of an audience, you have to sell them on what they are going to learn. If you demonstrate to them that this information can be used to have a positive impact, then you will get your audience to pay attention to what you have to say. Not selling your major points can cause confusion and it will make it harder to sell your points when you get to them in the presentation.

As you work on long presentations, training sessions, and workshops be aware of the benefits that your attendees will gain. Then when opening your session, share specifically what monetary, time, or other benefits can be had from paying attention. Sharing the benefit will increase attention, engagement, and give people a sense that you are providing value which makes them engaged.

Leave a comment and let us know the last time you heard an engaging or disengaging opening to a speech.

Do you want to know a sure fire way to alienate large portions of your audience?

“You all know the next speaker…”

Can I let you in on a little secret? Not everyone knows the person that you are neglecting to introduce, so you always need to properly introduce someone. This common oversight only gets worse when the person comes up and gets right into the content without introducing themselves after a misguided introduction.

When someone introduces a speaker as “a person that needs no introduction”, you will alienate everyone in the audience that doesn’t know the speaker from Adam. It also has the unintended effect of that are unfamiliar with the speaker feel like they are not connected with the rest of the group, which makes the speakers job far more difficult.

As a speaker, you need to make sure you have written an introduction and provided it to the person that will be introducing you. I wrote a post on this last year that you should check out.

Even when writing and providing an introduction, sometimes people will introduce you as the speaker everyone knows. When this happens, and it happens a lot, you as a speaker need to know how to recover from this major speaking faux pas. Whether it is in a Toastmasters club, association meeting, or other event; you have to assume that there is a large part of the audience that doesn’t know who you are or what you can do.

If you are being introduced as someone that everyone knows already, then you have a moral obligation to introduce yourself to the audience. If you have a powerful opening  that draws people into your content, consider developing an alternate introduction that draws people in while establishing who you are and why that matters.

To do this, you need to develop the same parts that you would have written and given to the person that introduced you. That means you have to provide your expertise on the topic, a statement that gets people’s attention, and compelling reasons for the audience to listen to what you have to say. This allows you to quickly let people know who you are, why you are there, and what you hope to accomplish. When you have soothed people into the speech, you can then get into the meat of the content.

Another gesture you can make to people who do not know you is to acknowledge them while speaking. This allows you to establish the connection with them to make them feel like they are a part of the group that knows you. Doing this makes the speech stronger, and establishes that you care about the audience.

As speakers and introducers, you must continue to be vigilant in stomping out this habit. Continuing to not introduce speakers can kill the credibility of the speakers and make it so people don’t want to join the group.

Spread the word by sharing this article with others.

Why don’t you practice your speeches more?

photo credit: S.Su

I have observed hundreds of speakers in the past four years of my Toastmasters membership. It hasn’t mattered if those speakers are brand new or old-timers, you can always tell when they have not practiced. I see it in the reliance on their notes, the overuse of filler words, or the lack of structure in the presentation. If I can tell, your audience can tell, and you are going to lose them.

So why aren’t you practicing?

Do you feel that you do not have enough time? Do you not know what you really want to say? Did you sign up to give a speech, so now you are going to give one whether you are ready or not? Do you think that it is just not your style?

My favorite excuse is, “I am not going to be a professional speaker, so I don’t need to practice. I want to keep it real.”

So you think that only professionals practice? You think practicing will make it seem unnatural? What about Steve Jobs? He is not a professional, but he spends hours practicing his presentations. So do successful sales presenters, pitchmen, and professionals. They have all taken to heart the advice, “Practice until it looks natural.”

The most “natural” speakers spend hours practicing for a 10 minute speech.

You have to practice.

If you want to be effective as a speaker, then you must schedule time to practice your presentations. It doesn’t matter if it is in a Toastmasters club or for a presentation to a trade group. The habit is important to develop, because it will allow you to get your point across, make your audience believe your message, and deliver value to the listeners.

Most speakers have a 5 to 1 rule for practice. That means that for every minute of your speech, you practice for 5 minutes, so a 10 minute speech would be practiced for 50 minutes. Is this the most important speech of your life? Then maybe you should make it 10:1 or more. The point of the ratios is to give you a time to schedule to get up there and give your speech.

Is practice boring, silly, or downright painful? Yes it is, but everyone that has ever done anything important in life has practiced. Whether it is in sports, music or art, every profession requires a level of practice. It doesn’t matter if you are an amateur or professional; if you are passionate about what you are doing…practice.

You audience will thank you.

I am reading Marshall Goldsmith’s, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, and it has been enlightening. As a leader, it has given me perspective on the habits that hold leaders back and keep them from attaining their true potential. What struck me about the cases presented in the book was the use of 360 feedback forms with the persons that were being coached. As a Toastmaster this interested me, because we are always giving feedback to our members, but are we doing it correctly?

It has been some time since I dug into the topic of evaluations on this blog, so I am glad that Goldsmith’s book piqued my interest in talking about it again. The evaluation process in Toastmasters is beneficial to our members, and when done effectively, can truly improve all members of a club.

In the Toastmasters evaluation materials, we always talk about using the sandwich method. “The Sandwich”, means that we point out areas for improvement between two positive comments on the speaker’s speech. This is done to motivate the speaker to improve by building on their strengths.

On paper it makes sense to do that, but does it work in practice? I ask, because I too often see many members only talk about what they like about the speech but never about what they need to improve. No speaker is perfect and by helping speakers discover their weaknesses, we can help them improve in their speaking.

That is one of the key principles in, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Goldsmith points out what the weaknesses are in our abilities and pushes us to correct our faults that are holding us back. It is something that I see lacking in many evaluations, but not all.

I can tell you from personal experience, that there are three people in one of my clubs that let me know what my weaknesses are. Though to a new Toastmaster, I might seem good. To more experienced speakers, I am stiff and robotic in my delivery at times. While many people would hate to have that pointed out – over and over – I love it. It gives me a reminder of what I need to improve on and my progress in removing that flaw from my speaking.

Do we need to eliminate the positive comments? No, because I agree that they reinforce the speaker and let them know what they are doing right. What we need to improve is our tracking of what people say are our weaknesses. It wouldn’t hurt to keep a log of what people say you need to improve. This allows you to target the areas you have the most negative feedback from and discard the areas where there are only one or two comments of it being a weakness. Then you can focus on improving the target areas one at a time. Targeting one weakness can help eliminate feelings of being overwhelmed by areas for improvement.

Evaluations are important to the Toastmasters educational program. They help you learn what you are doing well and what you need to improve. So as you get up to give one, think about how you can target key areas that the speaker can improve. What are their weaknesses? If you are a speaker, think about how you can track feedback you are getting and then improve one thing at a time.

You can get there.

Note from Chris:  Today’s guest post is from Stevie King. I am excited to have Stevie post, because he is one of only a handful of speakers left competing in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. So let us learn from Stevie about, “The BIG thing.”

Project three in the basic manual of Toastmasters International is titled, “Get to the Point”.  The project has the speaker work on identifying both a general and a specific point to their speech.  Most of us don’t have a problem identifying the general purpose of our speeches.  If you are a professor, your speeches inform.  If you are doing an after dinner speech, you typically are there to entertain.  If you are speaking at a graduation, often you will want to inspire.  Often times, lost in all the emotion of a rousing motivational speech, the specific point is lost.

The specific point of your speech is the action item.  It is the DO of your speech.  The graduation speech needs a call to action.  A persuasive speech requires you to ask people to act on your message.  Even a lecture moves your students to further investigate your main points.  As a speaker, we often times have several themes we want to get across in a presentation.  But all of your themes must support one main idea that you are trying to get across.

My process for developing a speech goes from back to front.  The first thing I do is come up with my specific point of my speech.  What’s the main idea?  What is my BIG thing?  That point is what drives the development of your speech.  That is what instructs you what should stay in and what material should be on the cutting room floor.  Your main idea is the one thing that you want people to remember about your time in front of them.

A great speech has to have pieces and those pieces have to move your audience through a roller coaster of emotions.  Think about the great speeches you have heard through your life and undoubtedly there is one key phrase or idea that has stuck with you all these years.  That was their BIG thing. What is your BIG thing?

Stevie King is a member of Athens Toastmasters Club 1779 in Athens, GA.  He is currently competing in the International Speech contest where he will be involved in the Region 8 finals on June 27.

You can read Stevie’s district winning speech as well as follow his contest preparation at his blog www.stevieking.wordpress.com.

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.

One of the complaints that new speakers have is not having anything to speak about. Three and a half years ago, when I started my speaking voyage in Toastmasters, I agreed with that complaint. Now however, I see speech ideas everywhere and after you read this post, I hope that you agree with me.

Today was a great example of how my mindset as a speaker has changed. I had been having a bad day and not feeling very creative. Then as I walked into the break room of our office, I saw the weather forecast on the monitor. For tomorrow’s forecast it said, “UNKNOWN.”

At that moment, something clicked and within three minutes I had written the introduction, a short part of a story, and the message that I wanted someone to get from that part of my speech. The title of the speech is, “Tomorrow’s Forecast.” All of that from a missing forecast on the television.

The mind shift that I want you to try to take is to not look at the world as devoid of things to speak about, but instead look at the abundance. Some of the greatest speeches start from humble beginnings. Though small events that happen in your life might not seem relevant in a speech, it is the similarities that you have with others that makes you connect with audiences. So pay attention to small failures, a small bit of good luck, or just listen to your inner monologue. Ideas on what to speak about are all around you and sometimes it is the most simple of stories about your life that resonate with those that will listen.

Still you still not convinced? Then humor me for one more minute.

Stop reading and look around your current environment. What are the objects that are around you? How did they get there? For example, what stories are attached to the quote on the wall of your office, to the person sitting next to you at work, or to the place you happen to be sitting? What brought you where you are today?

Just answering those questions and noticing the world around you will open you to infinite speech ideas. It is now up to you to use them. Will you speak about why that quote appealed to you on that day? Will you tell the story of your coworker’s triumph over cancer, or will you talk about the people sitting near you in the airport. What story do they have and what story will they allow you to create in your next speech?

This post ended up being so long, that I am breaking it into two parts. Part 1 was posted yesterday and part 2 follows:

If you didn’t catch my post from Saturday, the Lady and the Champs workshops give you the opportunity to hang out with four Toastmasters World Champions of Public Speaking and NSA Hall of Fame Speaker Patricia Fripp to learn more about the art of speaking and gain specific knowledge to make you a better speaker. The workshops also teach you about the business of speaking and how you can develop more opportunities to speak.

Allow me to continue my review of the remainder of the seminar.

Craig Valentine

“How to Create Killer Content”

WOW! This presentation rocked. It provided so much value to everyone in the room, that Craig had sold out of all of the physical copies of his home study courses before he got to the back of the room. Not only did I walk away with some killer content pointers (and a home study course), but it demonstrated a point Darren made during his keynote on developing product to share with people that want to be trained by you. Craig demonstrated that this knowledge was valuable and he did it in a way that made us all want to take a piece of him home. This is one program that you have to see at some point in your life.

“How to Master Delivery: A Coaching Program”

This was a great breakout, because it addressed how you perform on the platform. After this session I felt that I better understood what techniques that when internalized, separate the good speakers from world class. In this session, I learned how to use questions to the audience better, move on stage, and how to get the audience to connect.

Darren LaCroix

“Got Mentors? Mentors Made Me Who I Am! Who, What, and How?”

Darren is one of my favorite keynote presenters, because he has such a great presence during his keynotes. He is one of the few speakers that manages to touch your heart and soul making you laugh and cry. I am go grateful for the opportunities I have had to meet with him over the last few months and he always provides the best content and is a wonderful person to be around.

I am lucky, because I got to see this presentation at the District 40 conference in November. Mentoring is a very important topic for me, because I have always struggled with being coachable. Many times my ego gets in the way of being coached, and this keynote highlighted for me the reason why I have to open up and allow myself to be coached. This keynote helped me see where I am still closed off to feedback and gave me some ideas to put into practice in my life.

“Got Humor? Comedy Secrets for Professional Presentations”

This was an important session for me, because I am not funny. I am not joking, I have been working the past few months to become less like a robot on stage and work on my humor. This session gave me a great introduction to the basics of comedy in presentations and I look forward to testing new material in upcoming Toastmaster projects.

In Summary

I really enjoyed this conference. Having attended another camp a few months ago, I understood the value of attending a live seminar but this was really a step above other workshops I have attended. Not only were the sessions with Patricia and the Champs awesome, but everyone in attendance was positive, focused on improvement, and willing to talk about their experiences.

One of the most valuable experiences during this camp was the EdgeNet Summit. Being a Champions Edge member gave us free access to Fripp and the Champ the day before the main event and it was an amazingly useful session. For more information on the Summit, check out my post from Saturday where I talk in more detail about the value I got from the Summit.

I look forward to my next opportunity to attend the EdgeNet Summit, Lady and the Champs, or other live seminars as my budget will allow.

This post ended up being so long, that I am breaking it into two parts. Part 1 will be posted today and part 2 will come tomorrow.

WOW! Last night I returned from the Lady and the Champs Seminar with Patricia Fripp, Craig Valentine, Darren LaCroix, and Ed Tate. The seminar was an amazingly valuable for a speaker, and I enjoyed both the Friday Edge Summit and the Saturday and Sunday workshop. From keynote to breakout session, I learned an amazing amount from the presenters and the other participants. A big thank you goes out to Cynthia for answering all of my questions about the seminar and Guy Burns for giving me a ride on Sunday.

If you didn’t catch my post from Saturday, the Lady and the Champs workshops give you the opportunity to hang out with four Toastmasters World Champions of Public Speaking and NSA Hall of Fame Speaker Patricia Fripp to learn more about the art of speaking and gain specific knowledge to make you a better speaker. The workshops also teach you about the business of speaking and how you can develop more opportunities to speak.

Rather than give a rundown for each of the two days, I thought I would write about each person’s presentation and the value that it provided in that order that their general sessions were presented.

Patricia Fripp

“It’s Not a Conversation… It is Conversational! Learn the Little-Known Secret to Dynamic Speaking”

In this keynote, I walked away with a framework for presenting I had never considered, how creative people can help their clients, and a methodology for collecting new stories where I am not the hero. One of the biggest problems that speakers have is finding new stories and Patricia shared one of the many different methods that she uses to find and develop stories.

“Good to Great! A Live Coaching Program”

WOW! Patricia’s coaching sessions are a rare chance to have elements of your speaking improved by the world’s top speaking coach. After only a few sentences, Patricia is able to give you detailed feedback on how to open, develop punch phrases, and structure your speech for maximum impact. I was enthralled by her ability to provide so much feedback in such a short time.

Some of the most “valuable” techniques I learned from Patricia this weekend were around negotiation. In a few short minutes during one of the session, I learned two valuable tips. One tip that allow speakers to turn the end of a google search into a gig and another that helps you exchange your speeches for other tangible goods that are not always checks.

Ed Tate

“The Story Finder™ – How to Create Stories that Lead, Motivate, and Inspire in 10 Minutes or Less!”

This presentation was adapted from a small part of Ed’s program Energize, Educate, and Entertain. The “ah-ha” moment I had during Ed’s program was that I should be performing this exercise at the end of every day. Then when I need stories for my keynotes, I have a well developed story file from the many days I have been doing this activity.

Ed is by far the greatest facilitator I have ever met and throughout the weekend, he shared not only how to be a better speaker but how to facilitate, grow your business, and market your business.

“From Free to Fee: How to Use Public Speaking to Promote Your Business”

This breakout helped people that want to speak professionally develop their plan for speaking more to local audiences. In this session, I learned about how to follow up with speaking leads, organization to speak to, and the basics of marketing a speaking business.

Ed Tate and Craig Valentine

“Guerrilla Marketing for Turbulent Times: 10 Ways to Market Your Business & Make Money in this Economy!”

I enjoyed this session, because I have been studying Guerrilla Marketing and applying the principles to my business. Having an hour with two certified Guerrilla Marketing Coaches gave me the time to learn more about the system and motivate me to continue to refine my approaches to marketing. For me it was a great reminder of all the tools that I have already taken advantage of to grow my business, and a motivator to improve the tools that I am using.

Stay tuned until tomorrow, when I post part two of my review of Lady and the Champs.