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Informative Articles

How Well Do You Speak?

By Sandra Schrift

Publishing Guidelines: You are welcome to publish this
article in its entirety, electronically, or in print fre*e
of charge, as long as you include my full signature file
for ezines, and my Web site address(http://www.schrift.com)
in hyperlink for other sites. Please send a courtesy link
or email where you publish to sandra@schrift.com Thank you.
___________________________________________________________

TITLE: How Well Do You Speak?
AUTHOR: Sandra Schrift
CONTACT: sandra@schrift.com
Format: 60 Characters per line
Article URL: http://www.schrift.com/article_40.htm
Article Autoresponder: article-040@schrift.com
___________________________________________________________

How Well Do You Speak?

Public speaking is the number one way to advance your
career or your business. When you are a good speaker, you
can close a sale, sell your point of view, and increase
your productivity as a business professional. Here are 10
tips to get you started.

1. The key to being a good speaker is to appear credible
and knowledgeable about your subject. Be perceived as an
expert on your topic. If you don’t do this the audience
will not listen well and you will not be correctly
interpreted.

2. Should you begin your speech with a joke or humorous
story? No, to the joke. Yes, to the funny story. Begin
with a humorous story that relates to your speech material.
This is a great way to connect with your audience.

3. Control your nerves before you begin. Visualize your
success. (the audience wants you to succeed.) Take some
deep breaths to bring about calm. If you are speaking in a
cold, snowy location, then arrive early and walk the halls
for about 5 minutes.

4. Your job is to take care of these four items:
• hold the audience attention
• make a favorable impression
• know what to do with your hands
• answer questions from the audience at the end of your
speech (if you don’t know and answer, say, “I don’t know,
but I’ll get the information to you later.”)

5. Make eye contact. Look at one person long enough to
deliver one complete thought, then move to another person
and do the same. When you do this, everyone in the audience
will feel that you are speaking to them also.

6. Why are visual aids important to enhance your message?
Well, they jazz up your message and most importantly they
increase the audience retention of your point(s). Most of
us delineate our thoughts visually. So your audience
needs to see as well as hear.

7. Don’t make these mistakes.
• forgetting to check the audio-visual equipment in advance
of your speech
• not demonstrating “enthusiasm” in your voice
• projecting your voice too forcefully
• forgetting to provide your program chair with your
introduction

8. Rehearse! Rehearse! Rehearse! All good speakers
prepare their presentation and then rehearse it for their
friends, colleagues, spouse/partner, in front of your
bathroom mirror and even videotape themselves for playback.
I even line up stuffed animals (borrowed from my grandchildren)
on chairs and create an imaginary “furry” audience.

9. Listen to good speakers, and then become one! All
speakers do not sound alike. So hear a variety of styles.
Do you want to be a Tony Robbins, Dennis Waitley, Ronald
Reagan, George Bush, or Colin Powell? Get some ideas and
then work on your OWN style. Include remarks that reach all
the styles in your audience. Express yourself so that people
can get auditory, visual and kinesthetic messages.

10. Why should you become an accomplished speaker? It will
make you more self-confident. You will become more persuasive.
You will be more dynamic in your delivery style. You don’t need
to do this alone. I coach speakers who want masterful
presentations and am here to help you. too. Email me at
sandra@schrift.com and be sure to visit my website for more
tips at www.schrift.com/tips.htm

Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Get
more clients and consistent monthly income? Judy Cullins,
book coach, and Sandra Schrift, speaker coach, invite you
to join a "Business Marketing Achievers" small group
coaching beginning May 25th. We are looking for 12
committed people who are ready to use speaking and writing
to catapult their business. For more details, contact
Sandra at 1-800-340-3683 between 9-6pm pst. Hurry! This
group will fill quickly. For details and to
register go to: http://www.schrift.com/group_coaching.htm

COPYRIGHT: ©2005 by Sandra Schrift. All rights reserved

About the author:
Sandra Schrift 13 year speaker bureau owner and now career
coach to emerging and veteran public speakers who want to
"grow" a profitable speaking business. I also work with
business professionals and organizations who want to
master their presentations.
Get more speaking skills at our "Summer Sizzle" webpage:
http://www.schrift.com/summer_sizzle.htm
Join my free bi-weekly Monday Morning Mindfulness ezine
http://www.schrift.com/monday.htm


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