3 Questions You Must Answer About Your Passion for Public Speaking

By Susan Trivers

You feel lucky to have speaking opportunities because you're passionate about your area of expertise and want to share it with everyone.

Your personal passion isn't justification for your speech. Your passion for your subject is a critical and welcome element in the mix of components needed for a speech or presentation. However, the only reason you ask people to give you their time and attention is because what you say will help them do something they otherwise wouldn't or couldn't do. The Return on Investment for the audience must be high.

Answer these 3 questions to determine if your passion translates into a presentation that benefits the audience:

1) What will the audience members do after they listen to you that they wouldn't or couldn't have done before your speech? The answer must be quantitative.

Here are some possibilities:

· Increase sales by X dollars;

· Improve customer retention by X%;

· Reduce turnover;

· Get a promotion in less than 6 months;

· Add a demonstrable and valuable new skill to their skill set;

· Become more productive as proved by number of projects completed in a period of time.

2) What do you offer that is clearly different from others in your area of expertise? Do you take some risks to deliver a message that is truly unique? Can you prove this by making a list of the top three ideas typically expounded in your area and describing how your ideas differ? You must also then be able to articulate the benefits of your unique ideas.

3) How skillful are you in the delivery of your presentation? Unique ideas that could generate a high return on investment will fall flat unless your platform skills are also exceptional. If you follow the conventions of everyone else in your company or organization or industry, you'll be abandoning the very passion that got you started speaking in the first place.

Groups want people to conform--that's what gives the group its value. Memorable business speakers get mentoring and coaching from people outside their own organization, industry or peer group. You must get away from the group in order to deliver your passion and expertise in a way that Puts the Audience First.

Susan G. Trivers, MBA is a consummate presentation skills coach with hundreds of confident, creative clients who have learned how to engage their audiences. Start with Susan's two fundamental principles: Put the Audience First and Be Yourself, Polished. Add effective leading (not supporting) materials to your key points, craft excellent stories, and add engagement activities and you'll raise your career profile.

The Red-Hot Guide to COOL Speaking - Craft and Deliver presentations that are Creative, Original, Outsized & Liberated is Susan's easy-to-use, apply-it-now e-book that answers all your questions about standing out when you're standing up in front of an audience. Available at http://www.susantrivers.com/store.php Questions are always cheerfully answered at susan@susantrivers.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Susan_Trivers

Public Speaking - It's All About You

By Jason Peck

I attended a seminar run by two-time UK and Ireland Public Speaking Champion, Simon Bucknall. The main focus was how to build a connection with your audience.

Obviously an article cannot do justice to the enjoyable two-hours spent at the event. And I'm not about to regurgitate the man's content here. So what I'm going to do is provide a little bit of information that you might find useful and give you some of my own thoughts.

When you're doing a speech or presentation, or if you've just done one, how many times did you use the word "you"? Once? twice? fifteen or more? If you use the word "you" more than the word "I" you are more likely to develop a connection with your listeners.

By using the word you in place of "I", you're automatically getting your audience to think about your content more and how it relates to them.

That's not to say that you can't use personal stories that use the word "I" at all. What it means is that you should give due consideration to the material that you're going to deliver and work out how it's of benefit to them. By all means use first-person stories as a way to illustrate what you're saying, but don't forget to come back to using "you".

It's hardly noticeable when it's done. You could be delivering the best presentation in the world. You could have the funniest material in the world. You could have the most amazing public speaking skills that has every graced a speaking platform. But...

If you've not connected with your audience, none of that matters.

You will lose them every time. And that's something that you don't want. You don't want your audience to be uninterested in what you have to say. What you want to do is be concerned with how well your audience is doing.

When you're doing your speech or presentation maybe think about the following:

Are you being clear enough? Do your points back up your overall message? That joke that you're using, does it tie in to what you're saying or is it completely irrelevant? Can your audience hear you? Can your audience read the information on your slides? Can you reduce the number of slides that you have?

Sometimes, you need to get out of your own way and focus on giving your audience the best you can. After all they're the ones that have paid to hear you. Or if you're speaking at your job or Toastmasters and they haven't hired you, then your audience is still important because

a) you still want to give them your best and

b) you never know if there's a guest in the audience who might be able to hire you.

c) you owe it to them to deliver memorable content

Jason Peck is a Humorist, Speaker and Consultant based in London, England. He provides empowering speeches, valuable business training and morale-boosting entertainment to businesses, colleges and private functions. Check out Pro Humorist

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Peck