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3D Speaking

Jan 29
0

The $100,000 Speech

By | 3D Speaking, Business, Life Lesssons, Public Speaking, Speech Coaching, Uncategorized | No Comments

January is almost over.  So, how are you progressing towards your new year’s resolutions? If you’re not, don’t worry about it.

I have a proposal for you.  You can implement it today.  Here it is: Scrap all your new year’s resolutions and have only one resolution – improving your public speaking skills.  You may disagree with this proposal but I challenge you to disagree with it after you finish reading the next paragraphs.

A few months ago, my childhood friend entered a business startup competition sponsored by few large companies.  After the elimination process, he qualified for the finals of the competition.  Five minutes separated him from winning or losing the competition.  All the work he accomplished over two months was to be judged on those five minutes.  He had to face five tough judges – the CEO’s of the companies sponsoring the competition – to convince them that he had the best business startup idea.  And he did. He won over the rest and was crowned as the best.  He received a prize of around $100,000 and free consultancy services until he established his business.

I was so happy for my friend when he told me about his story.  I asked him: What was your edge against the other contestants? Was it your business idea?

He replied: Not the idea.  I won because of my speech.  Some of the contestants had good ideas too but they could not communicate them effectively to the panel.  $100,000 for a five minutes speech!  It is mind boggling if you break it further. For each minute he spoke, he received $20,000.  This story confirmed my firm belief that public speaking skills can do wonders for our personal and professional lives.

This belief was confirmed further two weeks ago when I finished reading a book entitled “How to Sell Yourself” by Ray Grose.  The book offers practical ideas on how to sharpen up your personal image to impress everyone in your organization and to achieve promotion quickly.

In one chapter, the author suggests five tested and tried ways to boost your image.  Here they are: (i) public speaking, (ii) Giving “Good” presentations, (iii) the nasty word “Selling”, (iv) the morning welcome and (v) step forward.  When I finished reading this chapter, I thought the author could have summarized it in one sentence:

“Become an Effective Speaker.”

Apart from the last idea, all ideas relates to public speaking skills.  For example, giving presentations is one form of public speaking where speakers inform the audience about certain matters.  In addition, when it comes to “the nasty word,” the author is referring to speakers who are selling things like their ideas.

In this article, I am selling you the idea of scrapping all your new year’s resolutions and having only one – improving your public speaking skills.  Effective speakers know the sales process and prepare diligently before they approach their audience with their ideas.  Sales is part of life. We sell when we try to persuade another person to do something, buy something or take on board an idea, whether the object of your persuasion is work colleagues, friends and family members.  So why not start learning how to use public speaking skills so that you achieve your life dreams faster?

Finally, effective speakers know the importance of the morning welcome.  They arrive early in the speaking venue to greet the audience as they arrive with a warm welcome with a sincere smile and a confident handshake.  They do this because they know that rapport with the audience should start before the speech begins, and they know that the audience will be friendlier if they have already met the speaker.

The benefits of being an effective speaker are many and are beyond this article.  Look around you; many people attribute their success to this one skill – Public Speaking.  The choice is yours. You could continue working on your many New Year’s resolutions or focus on this priceless skill but before you do so, keep this in mind: my childhood friend did not win his $100,000 because of his business idea but because of how he communicated his idea.  I trust you will make the right choice.  Work on your public speaking and it will be a step forward you will never regret.

Nov 17
0

Powerful Event but Powerless Speakers

By | 3D Speaking, Business, Event Management, Life Lesssons, Public Speaking, Speech Coaching | No Comments

The place smelled like money; the company must have spent at least USD 500,000 on the event.  This amount is peanuts for the billionaire investor who has investments in all major business centers of the world from New York to London and Tokyo.

The place was so well decorated; I thought I was walking in one of the internationally famous galleries.  The gorgeous servants were wearing very short and tight skirts along with high heels.  They were as busy as bees serving the VIPs.  In the right side of this commodious reception hall, there was an old man playing a strange musical instrument, it looked like an enlarged guitar but sounded very disturbing.  I felt like a stranger because I did not meet anyone I know and these VIPs were busy talking to each others, perhaps striking lucrative business deals.  Few minutes, I was lucky to meet some of my business contacts and few friends.

The organizers called us to enter one of the halls of Bahrain RitzCarlton Hotel to begin the official launch ceremony.  It was on the eve of 1 February 2011 around 8 o’clock.  We sat comfortably on one of the round tables.  Without waiting for the organizers permission; we attacked the samboosa, spring rolls and the cheddar cheese cubes on our table.  We were so hungry!

The Master of the Ceremony tapped the microphone to check whether it was on or not and then began by opening in the usual way: Your Excellencies, Your Highness, Dignitaries and our most welcome guests: Good evening.  I thought this was very boring and expected.  This well-known TV news anchor lost an opportunity to make an impact on the audience by having a better and stronger opening.  She then continued with her prepared remarks and introduced the different segments and speakers of the event.  She was very formal and dull.  She did not smile at all.  I thought we were supposed to be happy and jolly because a new company is born.  But instead I felt I was in a funeral.

Unfortunately, the pain and suffering continued.  All the speakers she introduced lacked the basic skills of public speaking and had common areas of improvement to shape up their speaking abilities.

For example, the first speaker did not start with an attention grabbing opening, instead he had the same boring opening of the MC.  He almost put us to sleep because he spoke in monotone voice.  He would definitely be a good babysitter.  In addition, he had zero eye contact with the audience because he was reading his remarks from his notes.  I did not connect with him at all; he did not use stories to engage us.  I thought: Please tell us about your vision for the company, share with us your dreams for it, tell us how all this started, and take us with you in a journey.  He was pouring facts and figures that did not make any sense to me because he did not put them in perspective. His speech was verbose.  Five of the six people on my table started typing and fiddling with their Blackberries and iPhones.  I even overheard someone telling another: “Can you believe it, we are in the RitzCarlton and we do not have a 3G network!” When he finished everyone was clapping for him, instead I grabbed another spring roll.

I remained in the hall observing the speakers and making mental notes about their performance while I was indulging myself in the starters available on the table.  What would you do if you were in my place? Stay or leave?  I decided to leave the event because I was so bored but then I decided to stay few more minutes because they started a fantastic laser show.  It was so colorful.  The two performers were magnificent.  They knew their routines, they perfected their choreography and they were so entertaining.  The audience clapped for them several times during their show. What a change from the powerless speakers who did not prepare very well and did not make us listen to them.  When the show finished, I left the hall to go home.

Do you think it would be a good idea for those speakers to join Toastmasters International to enhance their public speaking skills? You bet.  On the other hand, if these executives are too busy to attend Toastmasters meeting regularly, they could have hired a speech coach to help them in crafting their speech messages and improve their speech delivery because the last thing you want as an event organizer is to have a powerful event but powerless speakers.