Just In Case You Missed It!
Hi Everyone,
Just in case you missed our success tip from last week, I thought I would share it with you again, as I know so many people got a great amount of value from it! It comes from Robyn Henderson, who is one of the contributors in Secrets of Great Public Speakers Exposed!
Enjoy!
Dale
This week’s Success Tip comes from Robyn Henderson. In 1992, Robyn authored and self-published her first book on Networking and within a short period of time became a ‘Global Networking Specialist’ and a popular speaker in dozens of different countries. Today she continues her love for speaking, plus combined it with her other passion of writing, where she has authored more than 15 books. Having delivered thousand of presentations, Robyn has some useful advice that comes directly from her chapter in Secrets of Great Public Speakers Exposed!
Robyn, what are some of the more common mistakes novice speakers make?
Having been a professional speaker for the past 14 years, I have seen a lot of speakers and I have seen a lot of simple mistakes made by both new and experienced speakers. Some common mistakes include:
- Trying to squash too much content into your presentation – many people who get up in front of the room may have worked in an industry for ten or more years and think they have to include every single thing they know in a one-hour talk. You’ll discover it’s far less stressful on both you and your audience to concentrate and expand upon just a few key points. This helps to embed the learning and is usually much more effective than covering so much ground that you leave the audience’s heads spinning.
- Going over your allocated time – surprisingly, when you get into a speech you often reel off way more information than you planned to, and often underestimate the level of audience participation. This makes it easy to get carried away but you must keep an eye on the time. You are never to go overtime, no discussion at all on this. If you go over time you are taking someone else’s time, be it the audience or another speaker, and you have no right to do that.
- Not giving a handout to an audience, even if you are not being paid for the presentation – respect any and every presentation and treat it like the most important speech you’ve done. This means giving the same resources you would if being paid (this may be a simple one-page handout that adds value and also lets people know where to find further information).
- Thinking you are better than anyone else in the room – well, you are not! Often this comes from a misguided belief about why you are at the front of the room. If you are not coming from a genuine position of wanting to help by sharing information and ideas then you might want to examine your motives. Remember, a speaker’s role is to serve their audience and the greater service you can be of to people, the greater speaker you will be.
- Arriving late to the venue, being unprepared and not knowing enough about the industry or profession of the audience – this basically says you do not care enough about your audience. If you can’t commit to being on time and researching your audience then don’t commit to the presentation.
- Telling stories that go on for too long and have no relevance to the point you are making – the only purpose of a story is to make or reinforce a point. If it doesn’t, leave it out and find one that does. Also, there is a difference between delivering a speech and delivering a training session. A good speech can deliver a story in 40 seconds that might take ten minutes to deliver in a training session.
- Using quotes and stories from speakers or authors and not acknowledging them as the source – this is self-explanatory and as Brian Tracy once said, ‘…always acknowledge your sources. First because it’s the right thing to do and second, if it’s wrong you can blame somebody else’.
- Thinking that you can charge top money for poor quality presentations – there’s a tried and true rule which can basically explain every business success or failure throughout history and that rule is to always ‘under promise and over deliver’. If you concentrate on being the absolute best you can be and deliver massive value, then the money will eventually find you. Speakers that over promise and under deliver, in my opinion, do more damage to themselves and the industry as a whole than they realise.
- Not walking your talk – many speakers deliver material that is completely inconsistent with who they are or what they do off stage. A classic example of this could be a very stressed person talking about work/life balance.
- Criticising other speakers publicly – remember what your mother told you, ‘If you can’t say something nice about someone…’ Criticising other speakers or telling derogatory stories about people without seeking their permission, which of course they would not give, is totally unprofessional.
To read more from Robyn Henderson and discover all the secrets to master the art of public speaking, order your personal copy of Secrets of Great Public Speakers Exposed at:
