If you looking to prove that you are misunderstood, on the right track with the wrong people, or just plain right when everyone else is wrong, then you’re wasting your time as well as mine.

But if you are willing to try a new approach, hear that you need to make some adjustments and work to keep getting better, then you are in the right place.

The weakest leaders and speakers I know are the ones who aren’t willing to admit they are wrong.

Stop looking for validation, and you’ll be free to do the work to keep getting better.

If you had been sitting there at the Toastmasters District 22 Conference in Joplin, Missouri…

“Don’t overdo it.” – Craig Valentine

Okay!

Sunday we had Craig Valentine for a 2-hour mini-coaching session on storytelling. There isn’t enough pure unadulterated awesomeness in the English language to help you understand what you missed. But I’ll try…

(Actually, these are my notes)

Why use the stage?
- make a point
- transition – structure your speech
- best: the action in your story prompts you movements on stage
- timeline
Make everything clarify your message, not confuse it
Don’t overdo it – subtle 

Don’t tell … Ask
Most people don’t want to be most people
If you want to know when to say “you and I” or “you and me”, remove the “you and” from the sentence and see which one makes sense

Coached Arlen
Leave your embarrassment in the lobby
Be more subtle in your vocal changes (character voices)

Curiosity – tease them before you tell them
- tap, tease and transport … 
  – Tap “what’s the number one thing standing between most people and their dreams?”
  – Tease – elicited answers and told the audience they were wrong
  – Transport – put them in the scene – Check the VAKS

If all of the questions are answered, your story is over. Even if you keep talking.

Circumstances - 

Characters – Just a few facts 

Coached Heather
Maybe change “perfect family” question
“Have you ever” felt there was a barrier to 
Figure out your foundational phrase – your tap should tie into their takeaway

First check in – 10:05 – these are things the audience took from the first hour:
Timeline on the stage
How to measure a pause (inner voice exercise)
Tap tease and transport
Don’t speak like I write- i.e. “get over here” she said
Don’t speak to impress, speak to inspire
Don’t tell…ask
Speaking is not a monolog , it’s a dialog
Check the VAKS

Conflict
when you introduce your character, throw them into the conflict
Conflict is the hook
Conflict invites them to solve the problem
Establish the conflict as early as possible 
Conflict – titanic hits the iceberg
Escalation – water raises in the titanic 

Come up with two or three events or conversations that escalate the conflict
Escalate until “the battle at boiling point”
Then comes the cure – with the guru – never be the guru of your own story
Be similar, not special
Put the process, not the person on the pedestal 

Ed – Better voices for better choices

Change 
After the cure, how did that cure change you?
What’s the delta

Credibility – who has more credibility about your story than you
Connection - 

We all have different stories, but we all have the same emotions – David Brooks

Conversations and dialog
Never add humor, uncover it
Use dialog – humor is in the reactions
It’s the look before and after the line that makes the line
The need to hear it just how you heard it
Always put the conflict before the cure

Last discuss and debrief – 11:10
What you pick up in the cure, you hand them out the door
Don’t re-tell it, re-live it
DC – be under the influence of your own emotions 
The cure can’t be in the title
If it’s too emotional, rehearse until you can give it without getting visibly emotional
Cliche – have them fill in the blanks
Most people don’t want to be most people

Awesome!

This morning, Craig Valentine opened the Toastmasters District 22 conference in Joplin, Missouri with Getting Remarkable Results in Leadeship and Life.

As always Craig Valentine inspired!

Some of the tidbits:

Never seen a positive leader with a negative team.

What you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

No neutral people. There either on the way or in the way.

Be driven by your vision, or you’ll be driven by someone else’s.

When we make excuses for someone, we invite them to never change.

I’ve been waiting a long time to see Craig here in District 22. As always, he delivered!

Craig Rocks!

Have any of these happened to you?

1. Slow down your speaking. Have you ever been given this advice? You might think that the way to make this work is to add time to your presentation.

Better? Cut unnecessary content.

2. The speaker before you went over time. Should you just plow through your complete presentation? Even while the audience is checking in with their watches, and out on you?

Cut content.

3. We’re you asked to do your 40-minute keynote in 20 minutes? Should you plan to speed up your presentation?

You guessed it…cut content.

Is there a trick? No, just a process:

First, go back to the beginning. Ask yourself, “What is the point you expect your audience to walk away with?” Craig Valentine calls this your foundational phrase. If you can’t get it to 10 words or less, your audience won’t get it either.

Next, look at the content that doesn’t support this phrase. We all love anecdotes and quotes that sound good. Stephen Covey says, “Be Proactive”. If you only include them because they sound good without really supporting your point, you need to let them go. Cut them. Now.

Do you have any activities? Can you bring in something that takes less time? Maybe you can take that 5-minute group activity and replace it with a 2-minute one. I did that recently at a training…oh wait…you don’t need to hear that.

Take a close look at the stories you use. Do your stories have characters that aren’t important to the point? Are there any superfluous words or phrases? Let them go.

Are you adding commentary? Sometimes this may be valuable, but not always. Be sure adding your opinion supports the audiences needs. If you are doing it for yourself, cut it.

Having to figure out how to speak less can be annoying, but if you avoid cramming information in you can avoid cramming your audience out. It’s tough to do the first few (hundred) times, but once you master the skill of cutting out unnecessary content, you’ll be more effective when you do speak, and you’re audience will be more likely to want to hear you again.

1. Figure it out for yourself (difficult, time-consuming, and a high probability of failure/quitting)
2. Learn from experts on your own (Books, Videos, other “learn at home” courses)
3. Learn from the experts directly

The first method is the slow, painful, learn-from-every-single-mistake method that has made America great. You may choose to believe that there are no shortcuts in life, but this method is a certain long-cut – don’t kid yourself. Another misconception is the lower cost here. But, if you delay future earnings while you patiently (and painfully) get better, is it really saving you money, or costing you more down the road?

The second method uses books, audio lesson, teleseminars and such to reduce the learning curve while keeping costs low and flexibility high. The advantage here is:

1. You can learn from the best
2. On your own schedule
3. At a lower cost than other options

This can be a great first step to see if the expert’s style will suit you, and get you through the basics without the deeper investment. Plus, when you’re ready to make the call and work directly with the experts, you’ll get more out of the experience, and avoid paying a premium for basic information. Translation: you can jump into the more advanced content.

Recently, I had the privlige to work directly with Darren LaCroix and Craig Valentine. Both Darren and Craig are among the best in speaking, highly successful professionals and highly sought after as speech coaches. One of the programs they run is called, The Secrets of Storytelling Champ Camp. Something you already know: The call it a Champ Camp becasue they are both World Champions of Public Speaking.

The advantage here was since I had learned quite a bit from both Darren and Craig from their CD and DVD content, I was able to really get some valuable advanced training in a single weekend. We took an idea I had for a story – the day I was laid off in 2009 – and turn it into a complete story with the ability to reach my audience.

The important factor here was to start by developing the 5 C’s of great storytelling. Characters, Conflict, Cure, Change and Carryout. These give you the basic structure to a powerful story. Then we worked through some additional techniques and If you want to learn about this storytelling process, check here.

Which method have you chosen? Are you getting the results you hoped for? If not, maybe it’s time to make a change and move to the next level. You can see real impovement if you’re willing to do the work, practice, and learn from the best.

Stop wasting time with the long-cut.

Here is a link to another article about Craig’s process I wrote in February.

Note: All links to the World Champions Edge are affiliate links. There’s no difference in cost to you, but if you’d rather not use the affiliate link, you can go directly to http://www.worldchampionsedge.com/.

The important question is how does this advice affect you?  Is this where your next speech comes from, where your next project comes from, where your next success comes from?

The notes from the Edge Summit are presented in chronological order. If you have some thoughts I missed, feel free to e-mail me at contact@robchristeson.com and I’ll include them here with attribution and a link (if you want). Please note that links to the Edge site are affiliate links.

Also, I’ve done my best to properly attribute information as I typed it in the session. Most of what you read here comes from World Champions Darren LaCroix, Ed Tate, Craig Valentine or Lance Miller from the Edge event. Mark Brown also participated remotely, and some material comes from the awesome Alan Weiss and the amazing Patricia Fripp. If you do spot any errors or omissions, they are unintentional and I’ll correct them immediately.

Here we go…
“Ya ain’t gonna learn any younger” – Lance Miller quoting advice he received from a story about learning to back up a semi trailer truck.

lightbulb moment – think chandelier moment – Maureen Zapalla

Three questions you should ask about your business
why you?
who will pay?
how will I reach them?

Topics members wanted to discuss (questions in bold)
coaching – developing a multi-session plan (this one didn’t get touched on) 

marketing a seminar - 3 months out – marketing blasts – touch multiple times – research says you can reach out to customers 220 times per year without annoying them – multiple items (e-mail, Facebook, twitter, etc.)

what 3 tips for the 73 people who didn’t make the finals - there were some thoughts later on the finals, read my notes here: http://robchristeson.com/toastmasters-why-you-wont-win-your-contest

Selling from the back of the room - selling without annoying people (SWAP) – sell another’s program before selling your own – Seeding (plant seeds) – weaving () – you aren’t selling products,you’re selling results
Lance – going from zero to moving – change from manipulating your client to helping them – 1. believe in the product, 2. care about the customer, 3. 
Craig – everybody has a story to tell, but rarely do they get to tell it, because (wait for it) everybody has a story to tell. Be the one to listen to other peoples stories.
#1 reason they buy – confidence in you – confidence comes from familiarity – familiarity comes from repeated exposure – sell the results (Craig’s car story) – put the result before the resource – not just for products, but in your speech too
Lance- present and ask for feedback – take the materials that work and use them to make your product

Ed – retention after 48 hours – 10 percent; take notes – 50 percent; notes and discuss – 75 percent; notes, discuss, and teach – 82 percent after one year

Should you have a book first, DVD, or other product?
Craig – never create a product without teaching it several times first – your first product should be an audio CD

Details about being a small business
Ed – this is a business first, you speak second. If you don’t treat it as a business, you won’t get to do either. More will come in the 2-day Get Paid to Speak seminar.

Using YouTube, how much is too much - embrace the concept of abundance – answer the question – 2-3 minutes – give a next step (more below)

Craig – recommended a book – Launch by Michael Stelzner

Maleki (District 71) – Take the Talent to Training and the Treasure will come out – not about the price, it’s about the process

“Be careful not to keep your ego to close to your position, if you lose your position, your ego will go with it” – Colin Powell quoted by Ed

Ed – the word is receiving – 3rd place Scott Pritchard stayed on stage after speaking and saying “mister contest master” (at the finish) and smiled at the audience for about 10 seconds – what’s the word? receiving

Ed – number one job of a speaker is to make an impact – not to be liked

Ed – Talk in Tweets (talk in sound bytes) <–blog topic

Craig – speaking in sound bytes creates a memorable message – what is his focus? two words – touch lives – before you speak, say “please help me forget myself, remember my speech and touch my audience”

Lance – conviction – convict – what happened to become a convict – trial with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt – conviction is having a position you believe beyond a reasonable doubt 
- passion – in dictionary, passion came from ancient word for suffer. 
Practice to execution ratio (pro football)
Passion are those things that we do that we would suffer through without feeling like we are suffering
Sincere – means we have a clean, clear message
Do a raffle for your product- collect business cards and draw one to get a free copy of your product. Be clear “I’m going to email you with an option to opt in” so they know why you’re collecting the cards

Ed – Presentation variety- in order to maintain peoples attention, change your delivery method every 5- 10 minutes (I.e. You talking, asking questions, audience interactions, etc.)

Ed asked a few of us to run the 10 minute review after lunch
Take one minute and review your notes and write down your three favorite tweets or sound bytes of the morning. – you will learn…
Instruct online folks to tweet to hashtag Championsedge 
Take two minutes to turn to your neighbor and choose your best tweet
Next we go one group per row to give their top tweet
Maureen will write them down

general or specialist? – start with what you know – package/title it in what they want Book “how to earn more than a million dollars …”  

“the Psychology of Money” – became  ”the millionaire mindset”
“anatomy of an audience” – “connect with any audience”

Esteem
Do
Gain
Enjoy

Craig – touch all 4 categories to reach your audience
Darren – start with 3 topics, 2 specific and 1 general (or 1 and 2)
Craig – your audience is going to come up and tell you what you are speaking about – “never strike oil by digging an inch deep”
Ed – you can also specialize by delivery methods – be known as “the person who is known as…”

Make three colums – Experience     Delivery     Results

Experience
Specifics about your experience

Delivery
Speech          
Seminar
Book
Process CD

Results
increase profits
decrease costs
decrease turnover

Homework – flesh this list out for yourself

Mine – Experience
Teaching
PM Increase knowledge (anecdotal)
Military
Logistics
Supervision
Evaluations
Speaking
Blogging
Writing

My Delivery
Blog
Speaking
Seminars
Lunch ‘n learn

My Results
Increase productivity
Decrease turnover
hmmmmm….(homework)

 
Focus on results, not experience and delivery – discuss results, leave out experience and delivery – Craig, focus on the pain – ask questions and turn their pain into your promise

Social Media is a hot topic right now – Be careful about speaking about making money with social media when your aren’t making money yourself (credibility)

Marketing a seminar - sign up on edtate.com - special report 
Ed – make sure that you have enough time i.e. three months to market it
Delivery mechanism – e-mail, linkedin, postcards, newspaper, business journal,
Darren – web page – convert them – title – split test to find best conversion method
Shopping cart – all three of them use the same one speaker resources.com

6- minutes to a keynote
Craig – structure – you have 7 seconds before they decide if they like you, 30 seconds before they decide to check out. Open with a question or a story – then make a big promise. i.e “By the time you leave here today, you will have the tools… you will have ideas…etc.” Then the roadmap. “…and these come to you in the form of 4 R’s to remarkable results”
10-1 rule of thumb, 1 story/point to every 10 minutes
Phrase
Anchor – what’s loose is lost – Acronym, anecdote, analogy, activity
Reflection – Take your story and have them reflect on how it affects them
Technique – how do they practice it i.e. “write down your perfect day”
Sale – Push them into the Pull – Push away from what they want to avoid and pull them toward what they want
Use the PAR for newer speakers

Demo video - less than 10 minutes on site (have report, need to have a point, need solid audio) – less than 10 seconds on who you are
YouTube 2-3 minutes (1 minute if you can) – 1 video, 1 purpose, 1 next step. no more than 3 scenes (locations)

you must package your process in order to profit

Ed- what do you want people to Know Feel or Do

Darren – watch the first 5 minutes of a movie – notice how they are introducing characters through dialog
Time management from NSA
Focus day – product, speaking
Administrative day – mundane activities
Free day  - free of everything – phone, e-mail, etc. 
Same model for athletes and entertainers

Darren -every time you speak, build your list – then, touch your list – at least once a month
Do interviews
an a-ha moment is a letting-go of a previous belief 

Charles speech (coached on-site)

longer pause after first “so was I”
pauses

“do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Concluded twice 

too many I’s, My’s and Me’s

My homework:

Work on 52bloggingtips.com – finish creating the tips and start filming videos

Talk to the Human
New tagline – an IT guys perspective on communicating with real people

Affiliate link alert: World Champions EDGE. This link will take you to the Edge website, where you can see some free materials or sign up for just $1 for the first month.

The premise of this book, why right brainers will rule the future, may not leap out at you. However, the assertions he makes will likely wake you up. While left brain work (logical, mathematical, or process driven) will always be needed, the right brain activities that are High Touch and High Concept are going to be where the jobs are in our future.

Daniel talks about the modernization of manufacturing, which shifted jobs in the United States from building things to knowledge work. Yes manufacturing still happens in the United States, but not to he extent it did in the past. Knowledge work is moving in the same direction. You’ve seen it, the ability to automate or outsource that kind of work (think Turbo Tax and help desks) is causing the next coming shift in our skill sets: the move to creative (i.e. Right brained – high concept and high touch) activities.

Think about it. What gets outsourced or automated? Other people jobs? Not anymore. Now, any tasks that can be repeated, directly measured and doesn’t take creative thinking can truly be done by anyone, anywhere.

Of course, the more important question is this: What are you going to do about it?

Daniel goes on to say that the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) is becoming the new MBA. MFA programs are becoming more popular, more prolific, and more preferred by the business world.

This isn’t an all-or-nothing concept. Imagine there are (hypothetically) 50,000 positions this year for new MBAs, 40,000 of them are outsourced and 100,000 people complete their MBA. Completing their MBA looked like a great idea for the 10,000 that find MBA-related work. I’m just thinking that if you’re considering being one of those who pursue the MBA, but your not sure you’ll be in that top percentage, you might want to rethink that investment.

What are you going to do about it?

Daniel’s six senses: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning are described in this book, with ideas you can use to incorporate these concepts into your life, and start catching up with an ever-changing world. It’s not too late, but should you keep waiting, expecting that you will be the exception to the coming wave?

Look around. Daniel Pink is right about the change that’s happening. We’re seeing it every day, across diverse disciplines and industries. If you don’t find a way to add the value of high touch and high concept in your work, then someone else will soon be doing your job, and another person who has prepared will be handling the high touch, high concept work that is needed. Pink gives some poignant examples throughout the book.

If you find yourself thriving in a left-brain life style, you may be able to live out your days without change. But, it’s not the same certainty it was just a few decades ago. Now is the time to jump-start your right brain thinking and get ready for what is already happening to us. Read this. Today.

Do you have an old mind?

Tonight, for the first time, I was a guest speaker at a college graduation. The ITT graduation ceremony at the Century II Center in Wichita, Kansas.

It was a unique experience.

1. I’ve never spoke with the blinding stage lights before.
2. The whole event went much quicker than I expected.
3. The students seemed to stay awake when I spoke, and people laughed (mostly) when I expected it.
4. Be careful what you write for an introduction. They’ll gladly read it verbatim.

Unexpected lesson: I asked the audience (all told about 300) who was on Twitter, only a dozen raised their hands (maybe 5 of which were graduates). Facebook? Almost everyone. LinkedIn? Less that 10, and only one student. The LinkedIn response was expected (you’ll see below). But I was shocked that none of them were on Twitter. Weird.

Below is what was the planned text of my presentation. Of course the real thing had a few modifications. I’ve lined out the parts I didn’t say. 

“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.”

This quote came from a great teacher, Socrates. I received it recently in an e-mail from Lois, here at ITT. It made me think, which is what I suppose Socrates was shooting for.

I’ve been a teacher, both in school and on-the-job. I always thought that I was teaching. Your instructors here may have felt that way as well. In fact, we have a whole system designed to make sure that we’re teaching. You’ve done homework, written papers, even taken tests, right?

And presumably, sitting here as graduates –<look to dean> – can I call them graduates? Ok. Sitting here as graduates you passed all, or at least most, of those tests. Right?

Was Socrates wrong? Maybe I’m thinking about it wrong. Maybe those tests weren’t proof that someone taught you something. Maybe they were simply proof that you had learned something.

Socrates was probably right. No one can make you learn.  You have to decide that you’re going to learn. Sitting here as the graduating class for June 2011, – <look to dean> – still okay, right? As graduates … you like hearing that? I’ll say it again… as graduates you’ve proven that you made that decision, that you wanted to learn, that you wanted to achieve what you’ve achieved, that you wanted to be in the graduating class this evening.

 <pause>

Afternote: someone decided to clap for them when I paused here, so I suggested that we go ahead and clap. I went on to say that we should plan to clap about every 4 minutes throughout the evening, which was surprisingly accepted as funny. After I said that someone tried to clap again. I said that it had not been 4 minutes, only about 18 seconds. Be patient. I heard some mild “good try” laughs for that one.

What is your next decision?

<pause>

Of course, you’re going to make loads of decisions, “Where will I apply for a job?”, “Should I get a different apartment”, <hold cell phone> “Should I accept Stacie’s friend request?” You get the idea.

Afternote: I decided to simulate holding a cell phone – it was mildly funny

No, what I’m asking is, “what is your next decision for learning?”

I read a study recently from the National Endowment for the Arts. They found that in the last year nearly 60% of adults haven’t read a book that wasn’t’ required for work of school.

A good friend of mine, named Craig Valentine, likes to quote another statistic saying that the average adult reads just one book in their lifetime.

Now this friend of mine is a professional trainer. He showed me his reading list from the last 10 years. In that time, he’s read over 520 books. I use that number, to illustrate this: 520 divided by 10 years = 52 books a year, or…one book per week.

Books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Guerilla Marketing, and Talent is Overrated. Those are the three I’ve read.

Think how many adults are out there reading zero books per year to keep that average where it is?

Those zero book club members, as I like to call them, are your competition for employment.

But what I learned from Craig was more valuable than simply a reading list. What he taught me was this: You can’t wait to get ready, whether it’s to speak to a group, take final exams, or… answer the call for an interview.

You have to Stay Ready.

<pause>

How do you do it? <count on fingers>

Continue to learn

Stay current

Network

Because you didn’t come here to hear me speak for 90 minutes, let me just give you one quick story for each one.

I mentioned Craig’s almost alien pace of one book per week. But you don’t have to maintain that kind of pace. Pick a number, say, 30 or maybe 50 pages a week.

When I interviewed at Cessna in 2007, my second interview was with my future boss’ boss. During the course of the interview, he was talking about something “global…whatever”and he asked, “have you read The World is Flat?”

<move to the side> Pop quiz. You’re in an interview, and you’re asked a question you want to say “yes” to, but the answer is really “no”. What do you say?

Afternote: I did get a “Yes” from the crowd.

I said, “Not Yet.”

Of course, reading books will not only help you to Continue to Learn, they can also help you to Stay Current. There is a more timely way to keep up in your field as well – join up

There are groups, both virtual and local to help you stay current in your field. I won’t try to name them all, but I will tell you about two I’ve been a part of.

First, as a Project Manager, I belong to the Project Management Institute, or PMI. This is both a global organization and a local one with a chapter right here in Wichita. We meet once a month, and provide PMs here in Wichita a chance to get to know one another and hear topics in our field. We’ve heard from the Project Manager for the Arena project, PMs from Spirit, Cessna, Cargill, and other companies throughout town. All experiences to help us Stay Ready to be successful in our own projects.

Second, is a group called Toastmasters. Another global organization with 15 clubs here in Wichita. If public speaking is your weakness, then this group is for you. You learn a lot, get more comfortable speaking in front of others and learn some leadership skills as well.

The beauty of these organizations is they fit right in with the last point; network. But how do you network? Of course I already mentioned local and on-line organizations. Find the ones that fit your needs. But what about other ways to stay connected? Well, there’s Twitter. Show of hands, who has a Twitter account? Audience too…mom, uncle joe, Twitter accounts? How about Facebook? Look at that…LinkedIn? …Wow

What is LinkedIn? Imagine a business version of Facebook. Just one photo, and your business experience, education, and possibly some references. There are discussion boards for a variety of disciplines, and you make connections with other professionals.

I’m not advocating on-line networking as a replacement for face-to-face networking, but using those on-line tools can make it easier to get in touch and stay in touch.

Networking can be powerful, and it can help you to stay current and continue to learn. All three can work together.

It is time for you to make that decision. Are you going to wait and see, get ready when the time comes, and hope to keep up with your competition? Your competition hopes you do.

Or are you going to decide to Continue to Learn, Stay Current and Network so you can Stay Ready for what is to come?

Graduates, we cannot teach you anything, we can only make you think. The decision is yours.

A couple of the objectives of this CC speech include being specific (i.e. no “stuff” or “things”), using words economically (i.e. “many” instead of “a large number”) and avoiding jargon. This last point, jargon, was especially important to me. This speech was about what people do for a living, which means one audience member’s answer is by definition jargon to most everyone else.

Because I made this very interactive, the audience was involved and provided a lot of input. Especially the engineers in the club.

Here’s what my evaluator said: “[You] gave a lot of power to the audience to control ‘how’ things were said. A lot of technical jargon was involved in details of what people answered.”

Say it ain’t so!

While I worked had to make examples relevant to the majority, I neglected to make sure to keep the audience from overdoing it on the jargon. Of course I cannot (and would not want to) control what they will say.

The lesson here is how to handle working with the audience. Anytime an audience member goes too technical, it’s my job to rephrase the point with less jargon. That’s it. It’s a lot like handling Q&A from the audience, where you need to be sure to repeat (and sometimes rephrase) the question for the rest of the audience to hear. In this case, since I was asking them questions about their jobs, I needed to make a point to repeat and rephrase their answers to reduce the jargon, and improve the understanding for the audience.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it can be a tremendous benefit to repeat Toastmaster manuals. In fact, I’m finding even more value now in taking parts of longer presentations and giving them as CC or advanced speeches to get feedback and tighten them up – piece by piece. I did that a few weeks ago by telling a story that I’ll use as the opening for a 30-45 minute presentation. I presented it as a 4-6 minute speech from the Advanced Manual on Storytelling and received some useful feedback.

If you haven’t done this yourself, you may find this to be a useful way to prepare for other presentations, regardless of length. Craig Valentine says to take your story to Toastmasters to get help if you can’t think of a phrase. I agree, but also take pieces of other presentations there too. Tighten up your professional speaking with the basic manual. Say it ain’t so!

Only one person will win at the next contest you are in. The rest will certainly not win, and that could be you. These are the strongest reasons why you won’t win:

You want to win a contest. This means your focus is in the wrong place. Just like in any presentation that you want to give successfully, contest speeches have to reach your audience. Focus on them. Even in longer presentations you have to capture their attention and interest quickly. But, in contest speeches you also have to reach them with your message and wrap it up quickly. Time is the only real difference in contest speaking.

Your message sucks. When you reach your audience, you need to leave them with something they’ll remember. Be explicit. If you think that you are so good that they’ll get it from the story, you lose. And yes, it’s that simple. Be explicit. That means have a phrase they can walk out of the room with – 7 words or less. Explicit. As 1999 champ Craig Valentine says – No Phrase, No Stage. Note: I’ve seen this done at every level of Toastmasters contests. At district and above, it’s a one-in-a-million shot to win (or even place) with a crappy/unclear message.

You have no story. Or worse, you have 3 main points. In 5-7 minutes. No. One point (see message above) and best is one story to support that one message. It works to have a sub story or two - nothing too complicated – to support the main story.

You aren’t checking in. Keep your audience involved. Ask a few questions, even rhetorical ones. Get it? Another example: you just finished a piece about that time where your girlfriend said “it’s over”. You might ask the audience, “have you ever had your heart broken?”

You are making assumptions. “We all…” haven’t done anything you can count on, except breathe. Don’t tell your audience why you are like (similar to) them. Ask them if they are like you.

You aren’t funny, or you are too funny. Balance. If they are laughing throughout the speech, save it for the humorous speech contest. If they don’t laugh at all, you lose.

You are standing still. Use the stage (or whatever space you are given) to build a scene. Be deliberate. Practice your staging. Pacing is only slightly better than standing still (i.e. you still lose).

It’s all about you. Don’t preach to your audience about why you know they shouldn’t smoke, drink or whatever. Show them (see story, above) how you learned that lesson and how they can apply it if they want to.

You aren’t taking advantage of feedback. Don’t assume that someone will be or won’t be able to help you just because they are another contestant, a District Officer or not in Toastmasters. None of those factors prove anything.
1. Give your speech wherever/whenever you can. Don’t use all of the feedback you get, but some of it will be helpful.
2. At the contest, seek feedback in advance. Hand your CC manual to a non-judge and ask them to evaluate you (projects 2-6 are best). Don’t concentrate on just one area (i.e. vocal variety) but look at the feedback after the contest. If you come to me after the contest and ask, “any feedback?” without telling me up front to pay attention, then you are just one of the many speakers I watched. Sure, I noticed something. But it isn’t the same. If you want me to give you real feedback, tell me before you speak.
3. Record yourself…and watch…and listen.

You aren’t getting good coaching. Get the best coaching you can afford. Can I help you? Yes. Can others help you? Yes. Are there previous World Champs that can help even more? Yes.  Affiliate link alert: World Champions EDGE. This link will take you to the Edge website, where you can see some free materials or sign up for just $1 for the first month. This is the best low-cost option to getting help. Personal coaching will cost more. Caveat: Other Toastmasters may be willing to mentor (help) you just because you ask. Don’t expect 24/7 access, but there is a lot of experience, expertise and talent out there.

You are still reading this post. Stop reading and get to work!