Entries from May 2008 ↓

Fear of public speaking? Are you getting freaked out in front of the audience? I know the feeling. Been there too. Not any more. I adopted Dale Carnegie’s basic skills of effective speaking fundamentals.

by s-t-r-a-n-g-e

In his timeless book The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking Dale Carnegie shares proven practices for that matter. Among other basic fundamental skills I loved these the most:

• Keep your goal before you.
• Seize every opportunity to practice.

Keep your goal before you

To frame the goal and the overall course of presentation or public speech use one of the following simple frames:

KFD

• What you want your audience to Know? For example, “WordPress plug-in X is deprecated.”
• What you want your audience to Feel? For example, “Do not panic, relax. It has support grace period.”
• What you want your audience to Do? For example, “Install our new version of the plug-in. The beta is open for subscription.“

OMA (this one I adopted from J.D. Meier)

• What are your Objectives? For example, “Improve SEO of your blog“.
• What are your Messages? For example, “You can do it yourself right away“.
• What are your Asks? “Tell your friend about Alik’s blog where he shares similar useful and practical nuggets“.

Other great write-up I always use when preparing to my presentations and public speeches is PickTheBrain’s  Nail Your Next Presentation with these Classic Principles of Public Speaking. It helps me checking the flow of my speech against timeless principles outlined in the article.

BTW, does not it remind you the structure of the post? Don’t you want your reader to know something new? Do not you want your reader to connect emotionally to your messages? Do not you want your reader to take action, like leaving comment, subscribing, or actually doing what you have just written?

Seize every opportunity to practice

This one is impossible to overestimate. Understanding stuff does not mean it can be presented smoothly and flawlessly. Knowing stuff by heart IS the way to relax on the stage. Blogrdoc mentions a quote from Dr. Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled

“Only once we constrain our freedom through discipline can we experience freedom most abundantly”

The other quote to support learning by heart is Anthony Hopkins’ quote mentioned by Pierre Mornell in his book  45 EFFECTIVE WAYS FOR HIRING SMART: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game:

“I brainwash myself with a scene. I go through each one 200 times”

Is not it perfectly explains The Secret Behind GTD and why it works too?

There is much more to effective public speaking - like storytelling skills and keeping your audience engaged - but these two are absolutely fundamental:

• Keep your goal before you.
• Seize every opportunity to practice.

Result

After performing few high visibility speeches I admit that focused and polished speech is most effective for me. How I measure effectiveness? I get business leads, I get invited to more sessions to present, I get nice evaluation forms from the attendees. Here are few comments I’ve got:

• “…excellent pace.”
• “perfect blend of presentation and demos.”
• “…His presenting skills were also good with a healthy dose of humor.”
• “great session with enough fun in it and a serious message“

I get less flattering comments too. These give me more food for thought and desire to learn and improve.

Are you part of a team? How do you build a tag team? How to achieve flawless execution of each member and the whole team?

by Karpfish

Here is my take

• Plan Ahead Or Plan Your Back Up Plan.
• Hire potential, not skills.
• Commit on shared values.
• Build vulnerability-based Trust in Your Teams.
• Each member is an Eagle, not a Duck.
• Share knowledge and opportunities.
• Practice Emotional Intelligence Core and High Order Skills.
• Grow Quality - Not Quantity
• Personal accountability is key.
• Provide and ask for contionous feedback.

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” - Henry Ford

Stomp Out Loud is my vision for how tag team should look like.

Why you keep returning to the same restaurant? Why you keep buying at the same supermarket? Why you marry to some brands for life? The quality and the prices are comparable any place else. Then what turns you into Raving Fan of the brand?

Experience is the answer.

by Clearly Ambiguous

I just started reading “Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life” book by William J. McEwen. This is what I read on the second page “Marty isn’t just buying a coffee. He’s buying an experience.”

What if I’d offer to all of my customers best experience they ever had? Would not I become their superhero?

• I want to give my customers best experience.
• I want to give my manager best experience.
• I want to give me colleagues best experience.
• I want to give my reports best experience.
• I want to give my wife best experience.
• I want to give my kids best experience.

What I’d get in return? My emotional, mental, and spiritual reservoirs will be filled with energy and my personal power will skyrocket.

I am on my quest to offer most valuable product - experience.

How?

My take is Win the Heart, the Mind Follows

What’s your take?