Public Speaking - Five Awful Ways to Open a Speech

The opening of a speech is one of its two most important parts. There are many great ways to begin, and for each great beginning, there is an equally awful opening.

Here are five awful ways to begin a speech:

• "Hi there, I'm happy to be here..." Please! This is the most bland, boring, badly overused speech opening. By the time you reach the word "here", half of your audience is already asleep. The other half is looking at their watches, wondering "When is this going to be over?" Don't waffle: just start!
• "I'm very nervous right now..." Who cares? Why do you think it's so important for us to know that you haven't prepared, you haven't practiced, and you aren't ready? The audience does not need to know how you feel. When you announce that you aren't at your best, you are automatically setting expectations that you will be bad. It doesn't matter how well you perform. If you do the best speech of your life, they will leave while thinking to themselves: "I wonder how much better it would have been if he/she had been feeling good."
• "Did you hear the one about..." Oh boy! Whenever people start their speech with a joke, it's usually sign that they are just following "public speaking rules." These "rules" allegedly state that you must start a speech with a joke. The problem is that jokes are rarely related to the topic at hand. They are only there to make people laugh. Nothing wrong with getting people to laugh, as long as it doesn't seem forced. Otherwise, after the laughter, people will wonder: "What was the point of that joke?"
• "Here is a story you all know..." Ugh! The starfish story, anything from Chicken Soup for... any story you received over the Internet, all have the same basic issue: many people have heard it already. Stay away from stories that everyone has told, unless you bring a twist to it. For example, I once heard the story of the tortoise and the hare which contained, not one, not two, but three different endings to the story. Now, that's a twist!
• "The great philosopher A. Nonymous once said..." This is another one of those public speaking "rules": start with a quote. Avoid this, once again, because it sets up your audience with the wrong expectations. The expectation is the following: this is going to be another boring speech filled with information we already know. Use quotes, just not at the beginning of your speech.

The two most important parts of a speech are the introduction and the conclusion. The introduction sets the tone for your speech, while the conclusion determines how the audience will feel when they leave. Don't set yourself up for failure from the start: drop these awful openings from your repertoire.

Laurent Duperval helps professionals become influential communicators. He publishes the "Bring Out The Speaker In You" electronic newsletter, which aims to help readers improve their public speaking and communication skills. You can reach him at http://www.duperval.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Laurent_Duperval

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Motivation Presentation - It Wasn't Only the Egyptians Who Built Pyramids!

When giving a motivation presentation, audience analysis is essential. You must think of your presentation from your audience's viewpoint. Chances are your audience has been asked to attend your presentation (they have not come along voluntarily) and many well be thinking: "What's in it for me?"

Don't take that personally. When giving a motivational presentation, that "What's in it for me?" question should be your call to action. For your presentation to succeed, that is the question you need to answer. A motivational presentation should be structured in a way that takes your audience from where they are now to where you would like them to be. You first must engage your audience's attention at their current level, and then demonstrate through your presentation how you can fulfill their natural desire to move up to the next level of motivation. Depending on the goals of your presentation and the intended audience, whether a sales force, production personnel or a football team, you must give them a reason to listen to your presentation. A reason that relates to, and builds on, their own experience.

Way back in 1954, American psychologist Abraham Maslow developed the idea of a hierarchy pyramid of human needs. That hierarchy pyramid has been the foundation of motivation presentations ever since. He demonstrated that there are five basic levels of needs that all people have in common: basic, safety, social, self-esteem and achievement. These can be visualized in a pyramid-type structure with the basic level at the base, up to achievement at the apex.

In the business environment for example, Maslow's hierarchy from the basic level upward is:

• Basic needs, which can be met through, attractive salary, holiday entitlement, etc.
• Safety needs, met by safe working conditions, good pension, health cover.
• Social needs, such as company fitness and sports club, planned social events such as office parties (my favorite!)
• Self-esteem needs, by prestigious job titles, sales-person-of-the-year award, etc.
• Achievement needs, through promotions, interesting job assignments, and so on.

Maslow suggested that people can only be motivated to move up to the next needs-level when they have satisfactorily met the main requirements of their current level. In other words, you are unlikely to have much success in your motivating presentation in telling you audience they have been selected to work on a prodigious new project (self esteem) if their pressing concern is their cut in bonuses (basic).

Interestingly, Maslow found that that when the lower-order needs have been fulfilled, the desire to reach the higher-order needs (self-esteem and achievement) dramatically increase in strength. The ideal motivating presentation should therefore focus more on the higher-order needs. Needs that excite people to develop their talents to the best of their abilities and enable them to finding greater meaning in their work.

A Certified Technical Trainer, Ian has over 10 years experience in the coaching, training and development of personnel in the hi-tech sector. For more presentation tips, ideas and resources, visit http://www.presentation-power-tips.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ian_W_Hay

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How to Give Great Presentations at Work?

What is a great presentation? As you might have already seen on the Internet, or read in books, there are many definitions of great presentations. Nevertheless, they all emphasize one point - a great presentation is one which, ideally speaking, completely holds an audience enthralled. It is not entirely true that only great personalities can give great presentations. To develop great presentation skills, which you will need, especially if you are a Six Sigma professional, you need to understand the anatomy of a great presentation.

Anatomy Of A Great Presentation

Unlike written reports where you have a chance to correct mistakes, presentations are a sort of 'get it right the first time' business activity. So, a considerable amount of preparation is necessary to make a presentation great.

1. All Great Presentations Are Well Researched and rehearsed in advance. You must determine how much information or statistics needs to be given in proportion to a plain lecture. Too much statistics defeats the purpose of your presentation and makes it boring.

2. Encourage The Audience To Have Confidence in you at the beginning by greeting them and briefly explaining the points you are going to cover during the course of your speech.

3. Presentations Are All About Scoring Points and winning over others to your opinions. Delivery skill is a vehicle of driving a point home. Statistical information should be presented in logical sequences and in the right doses.

4. Make The Presentation A Light-Hearted One wherever possible but without compromising on the seriousness of the matter. All great presentations are made in simple language using industry specific jargon, but not words that are too hard to understand.

5. Great Presentations Use Audio-Visual Aids for greater impact. This is based on the principle that a picture speaks a thousand words. Even a budgetary speech or an accountant's presentation can use slide pictures.

How To Give Great Presentations

Begin with greeting the audience; end with asking their feedback and then thanking them. Announce that you will answer their questions later at the end of your speech. Apart from the apparent benefit this provides you, you get their undivided attention to your speech which is vital to your success.

Proven Steps To Give Great Presentations

Whether it is a formal speech to a large audience or an informal briefing, knowing your audience is vital to your speech preparation and helps you to relate it to them. Here are a few steps to making the actual presentation.

1. Judiciously Use Examples from everyday life or from past events to make your point quickly understandable. But don't let examples occupy center stage.

2. Don't Forget, Your Audience may have come from different departments within your organization. Each of them has different interests and different levels of understanding on your topic. Strive to address the needs of the entire audience, not just a select few.

3. Grasp Audience Responses that show whether and how much they like your speech. Make midcourse corrections to the tone of your speech if necessary. At this point you can engage them to lift their moods.

4. Extemporaneous Presentation goes a long way to make it interesting as this obviously eliminates the 'report reading style' and gives your speech a natural touch. You can use notecards if necessary, so that you don't forget them.

5. Using Body Language Effectively. Make eye contact with members of the audience. Make gestures like hand waving, nodding and voice. Using body language in this way helps to break the monotony of a possibly long speech.

Giving a great presentations at work is not limited to just benefiting your organization. Use this vehicle to travel that extra mile to reach your career goals.
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