2-Minute Tip: Challenge the Audience to Discover Truth Immediately challenge the audience to discover a truth about themselves that proves the premise of your talk. If the group knows that you have an appreciation or understanding of their personal (or business) situation, they will engage. As a bonus, make them laugh within the first 30 seconds. Post Tip Discussion: Meet Amy Lyle I always enjoy to talking…
2-Minute Tip: You Know Your Stuff Experienced speakers still feel anxiety and nerves before getting on stage, but there are a couple thing you can remind yourself of before you start speaking. First, you know your stuff. The reason you earned that stage is that you are a subject matter expert (SME). You’re likely speaking about your work or your passion. Or you’re presenting material you’ve…
2-Minute Tip: Don’t Memorize Memorizing your speech is generally a bad idea. You want to internalize it, not memorize it. There are 3 main problems with memorizing your talk. First, it’s a lot more nerve wracking. Second, if you forget a part you’re more likely to get stuck and freeze. Third, your audience wants you to be real. You want to practice and prepare…
2-Minute Tip: Create a Presence Live everyday to create a presence that has presence when you’re not present. As a speaker, in order for your message to have impact, it has to be something that sticks with your audience when you are not there. You can do that by being a powerful, memorable speaker. But that’s not the only way. Give clear guidance. Develop a…
2-Minute Tip: Use Click Bait-ey Titles When you need a title for your talk, take a lesson from all those click-bait titles you see on Facebook and other social platforms. Make it short, compelling, and maybe a little edgy. When you promise a talk with the “5 Secrets to Successful Penguin Petting,” you also have a built-in structure for your talk that will keep you…
2-Minute Tip: Don’t Squander Water Cooler Talk After winning or losing a big sale in a store there’s tendency to brag or vent to colleagues around a literal or metaphorical water cooler. It happens after a big talk, too. We celebrate the brilliance or decry the stupidity of an audience. Don’t. It’s not effective. It won’t help you win or save more sales in the…
2-Minute Tip: Practice To be successful, there is no substitution for preparation. Practice. Rehearse. Prepare. And then practice some more. When you see speakers who make it look easy — who effortlessly string together words and phrases and jokes and more — it’s usually not off the cuff. It’s because they’ve practiced. Put in the time and know your stuff cold so that you can come up…
2-Minute Tip: Scientist-Philosopher-Author To grow as a speaker, develop your path along 3 aspects. This is a framework you can use immediately to become more effective quickly. You have to be a scientist, a philosopher, and an author. Be a scientist and conduct experiments in your preparation and on stage. Figure out what works for you. What is the right level of energy? What gestures feel most…
hjklb 2-Minute Tip: Seek out Vulnerability Vulnerability can be a powerful element in your speaking. Being vulnerable doesn’t mean your weak. It’s about having the confidence to acknowledge how you can grow today and how you have grown in the past. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable helps the audience connect with the most human aspects of your nature. Post Tip Discussion A lot of us got…
hk 2-Minute Tip: Evaluate and Connect Create a scoring sheet for your audience members, and ask them to complete in at the end of the talk. In the Learning and Development field, we call these smile sheets, and they are the first step in figuring out if training is effective. In a speaking context, they can be a little different. One approach is to build…