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Now that we’re going through the different support materials of a great speech, it’s worth breaking out different types of components. (See Tuesday’s post for a full rundown of where we’ll be going and when.) Today I want to put the focus on stories and... Read More →

Just like a culinary masterpiece begins with the best ingredients, crafting a great speech begins with getting the best support material you can and knowing what you can do with it. Even if your planned speech is something anecdotal or casual, you will want to give some real... Read More →

When researching and writing your presentation, there are two steps that we’ll be looking at. You’ll need to gather all the raw data – facts, case studies, interviews, background, anecdotes, etc. And you’ll need to establish the most basic structure of your speech. I have found... Read More →

I have been going over a lot of material that I hope has been helpful in laying the groundwork for your speech and understanding how you can connect more by knowing your audience and their needs. Now that we’ve laid that groundwork, it’s time to start with the real foundations –... Read More →

One fine day I was chatting with someone and they happened to state that they were terrible at extemporaneous speaking: “all that last-minute stuff and such.” Whoops! Okay, I know I’m a speech geek, but this is important. Before you can learn to be a better presenter, we have to... Read More →

Over the course of my 25 years instructing attorneys, business executives, politicians and others I have learned some of the comments that I can expect when we start. And one I am almost certain to hear is that they don’t need any help crafting their message and just want to... Read More →

Before I leave the topic of getting to know your audience beforehand, I wanted to say one last thing about a situation that seems to be everyone’s worst nightmare: last minute requests to speak at work meetings. Since this subject is one of the ones I am most asked about, I... Read More →

In this series targeting some strategies to help know your audience, I have given two tips that will help you be prepared and target your speech with specific information. First, I told you that you need to plan on arriving early and connecting with the attendees one on one to... Read More →

You may occasionally need to present material to a city council or other governmental board. Go beyond the usual here. Don’t just find out what political party your audience subscribes to. That isn’t going nearly far enough. Find out if they are up for election, what... Read More →

As I mentioned last time when I was talking about judges, there are some very specific aids that legal professionals have in the area of getting to know some pertinent background info on their audience. There are limitations when it comes to juries, but that doesn’t mean you are... Read More →