Talk to the Human™

As I walked into the room, there we no people there. There was, however, a good size stage and about 300 chairs, silent in anticipation of a future audience. I decided to step up the stairs to the 12X24 foot platform, and ponder giving a presentation in front of an audience filling that room.

I thought about 2005 World Champ Lance Miller’s presentation the day before, and how his chairs were filled and even after they brought in more there were people standing anywhere they could. I had no presentation to give at that event, but as I stood in that empty room and gazed at those 300 seats, I imagined them filled with an audience waiting to hear a well-designed (and hopefully well delivered) presentation. Just one word came to my mind. No, that word wasn’t fear, paralysis or even whatamIdoinghere.

That word was responsibility. It’s funny how a bigger crowd, even an imaginary one, can change your perspective on things. I’m not saying that I don’t feel responsibility when speaking to a 20-person Toastmasters club, or a 50-person lunch and learn. But that room really crystallized the depth and meaning for me.

What hit me there on that stage, in that empty room with those unfilled chairs was that when you speak to Humans, you have to be ready to take responsibility.

Responsibility for knowing your audience. What do they need, what do they want, and what are their expectations?

Responsibility for your content. Is it accurate, is it specific enough, and is it credible? Most importantly, will it help?

Responsibility for your self. Have you prepared to be professional, are your handouts professional, and is your delivery professional?

This responsibility can feel like a very heavy weight if you aren’t ready. But when you are, it can be a wonderful gift. Because on the other side of this responsibility is another word: Impact.

By meeting this responsibility, you can have a tremendous impact on your audience and their lives. What is it you want them to think, do or feel after your presentation?

Another convention presenter, Rory Vaden, talks about self-discipline and how we should “Take the Stairs.” One visual is of a line forming to wait for an escalator going down when the stairs next to it go unused. I know there were people that looked at those escalators differently after hearing his presentation. That’s impact.

Next time you have to address an audience of any size, consider that responsibility you have and how you’ll use your skills and your message to make that impact on your audience. It’s your responsibility…

As I watched the International Speech Contest at the 2010 Toastmasters International Convention, I noticed a few things that, in my opinion, truly contributed to the best speaker being recognized as the World Champion.

First, without a doubt is have a message. This may be a no-brainer, but in two years of watching the finals and three years watching regional/semi-final contests I have seen some speakers miss this one all together. You may ask, how do they miss something so critical? Good question. It’s simple, they only think they have a message. You have to, have to, HAVE TO  be sure that the audience will walk away with your message, and better yet with it worded the way you meant it. See Craig Valentine’s work on Foundational Phrases – No Phrase, No Stage.

Tell your own, compelling story. It has to support the message, and in my experience the strongest messages are the ones learned from someone else, like a parent or sibling.  In David Henderson’s speech, The Aviator, his lesson “losing people is a part of loving people” came from a powerful discussion with his mother. His use of dialog was strong, and it helped us relive those moments with him.

Use humor appropriately. David’s speech had a very serious message. However, he was able to light up the room with parts of his story about how he and his friend would play together. As I remember it, they “flew over a bazillion missions together without any casualties.” In Robert Mackenzie’s speech, My Alter Ego, there were a number of well placed lines that fit right into the speech. A crowd favorite was, “By 30 I had said ‘no’ more times than Toyota said ‘recall’.” 

Set the stage with grand and normal gestures. David took us back to a time when he and his friend, at age 7, used to play aviator together. He did this twice by extending his arms and making airplane (and shooting) noises to simulate the event. Robert did this by showing us the size and place for his invisible alter-ego, and then taking us back to that spot on the stage when he needed to, including simulating a door to go inside and shut himself in.

Of course, giving a championship-quality speech is more than checking off a few boxes of “must-do’s”. But if you are missing any of these elements in your speech, don’t be shocked if your name doesn’t get called.

Another thing – be sure to practice (duh), but don’t overdo it on soliciting feedback. Use Ideas #1 and #2 in my advaced suggestion post, and get feedback each time you practice. Have someone you respect and trust write you a manual speech evaluation each time you practice, and ignore all the verbal minutia you get from the rest of the room. Of course, you’ll want to get some professional-quality coaching as well. World Champions Edge (affiliate link) is a great place to start.

Good luck, and don’t wait too long to get started. Next year will be here any minute…

It’s been a fast-paced week with a plethora of opportunities for Toastmaster from around the globe. Personally, I had a wonderfull time and accomplished a lot in this much-too-short Convention.

It all culminated tonight with the final dinner event, the International President’s Dinner Dance (ticket required). At this event, the new International President assumed responsibility and the current IP became the Immediate PIP (Past International President). Now, say that three times fast.

Two interesting topics of note:

First, the outgoing IP, Gary Schmidt, walked in to the theme from Star Wars, and had Golden Gavel Recipient Carolyn Kepcher on his arm. The fact that she stayed for the extra evening to support our International Convention spoke volumes to our membership. She could have easily got on a plane after last night’s Golden Gavel Dinner, and that would have been absolutely fine. But, a number of members mentioned that it was [pretty cool] of her to stay for this dinner event.

Second, new IP, Pat Johnson, gave an outstanding acceptance keynote as our new President. She asked us “Who are your giants?” that allow you to see farther than you could see without standing on their shoulders. Who has made a difference in you life, what evaluator, what mentor has helped you to get where you are today. And…who will you serve as a giant to help them see farther than before?

Her theme of Achieving Greatness Together wove well into the stories and presentation overall, and was a great way to start off her new year.

It’s been an amazing and fast-paced week, and now I am just plain tired. I hope you have enjoyed reading my recaps of the convention. Feel free to post comments on any of the entries, and look at the site and read other posts on my site on Toastmasters-related topics of Communication and Leadership.

Also take a look at a new site I’ve launched with Arlen Busenitz, called SpeakerBlogger.com. Take a look and check it out. Also, we are actively seeking guest posts to publish on the site. If you have something you’d like to submit, please let me know.

Tomorrow…the EDGE with Mark Brown, Craig Valentine, Ed Tate, Darren LaCroix and possibly other World Chanps! More to come…

In my post about Friday Afternoon’s Accredited Speaker Program, I said “All of the speakers were good, but in my non-judge opinion, I would guess that Rochelle Rice has the best chance of getting the designation this time. Karen Twichell might pull it off too.”

Bam!

Called it right, baby. At the International Speech Contest, Rochelle and Karen were each awarded the Accredited Speaker designation, and given a pretty honkin’ plaque to go with that honor. Congrats to both, and a big Woo Hoo!

2 Years – wait for it…

This week, Toastmasters International is holding their Annual Convention at the Marriott in Palm Desert California.

Here are a couple of thoughts for those coming between today and Wednesday:

1. The Palm Springs airport is small. You don’t have to worry about getting lost looking for your luggage. The ride to the Marriott is ~20 minutes.
2. Bring your swimwear. The pool here is nice, and the weather is “warm” (it’s a dry heat).
3. Bring capacity. There will be some free materials from the ID candidates, as well as a wonderfully-stocked TI store. Not to mention all of the tourist-crap for sale everywhere.
4. Check the TI website for the schedule. Plan who you want to see. Jim Key, Rory Vaden, Lance Miller and other great speakers will be there. Also, you can download and print their handouts in advance.
5. Have fun. The weather is great, the hotel is beautiful, and the people are going to be a blast.

P.S. Volunteer! It’s fun and you’ll meet cool people, see more and get to do more.

I hope to see you there!

You have your customer. Now it’s time to think about how you deliver your message to him/her. We’ll stick with the example from the last post, you as an expert in health and fitness.

We’ve established your customer as men 35-50 who have an desk job, are married with family commitments and need solutions that fit a busy schedule. Now we need a message that resonates with that group.

This message comes in multiple parts:

Your business name
Your tagline
Names of your primary products and services
Names of your signature presentations
Even how people refer to you

Some of these items can be the same. For instance, Craig Valentine has a product called Create Your Killer Keynote. He also has a presentation with the same name. I know because I own one and saw the other in Tulsa this spring.

For the rest of us, the business name doesn’t have to be complex or totally unique. But, you can choose to go that way too if you like.

Simple
Craig’s fitness coaching
Smith brother’s fitness
Marilyn’s body shaping

Unique
30-something fitness inc.
Pennystone fitness
FitBlogger

Next is the Tagline. For my Talk to the Human Blog, I decided on Ways to improve your interactions with real people. That wasn’t my first tagline, and it probably wont be my last. For more tips on taglines, check out this post on CopyBlogger.com.

Naming your primary products or services, of course, requires you to have them. Examples:

FitBlogger blog
Get fit with Chuck cd set
Eat right and be fit cookbook
Build a Better Bicep home study course
Joey’s personal fitness instruction

As I mentioned before, those signature presentation delivered as a lunch and learn, seminar, or even at your Toastmasters club for practice should have a catchy title to help the audience know the value they will get by listening.

Michelle’s 7 steps to a healthier you
Sonia’s 3 keys to eating tasty and healthy food
A heathlier you in just 9 minutes per day

Finally, I mentioned how people refer to you. This refers to a type of iconic status, which means it develops over time. For instance, I know a guy named Rory Vaden who’s signature presentation is about self discipline. It’s called “Take the Stairs.” I see it enough that whenever I look at an Elevator, my mind says “Rory!” and I head for the stairs (within reason). I should probably hide his Facebook posts, but that’s another story.

Iconic status isn’t always flattering. Personally I’m glad my “Talk to the Human guy” idea from early posts never caught on. I’m not even sure what I was thinking on that one. 

Determining your message is a multi-step process, and thinking about those different areas where your message goes will be important to your success. Start with that combination of who you are , what you offer and who your customer is. Brainstorm with some friends, your Toastmasters club, or here on the message board.

Does it feel like your customer is everybody, but nobody is buying?

You may be falling for one of the key traps that exist in every industry: not properly identifying your customer.

To be clear, I’m not saying that you limit who you would sell to, I’m talking about identifying who you expect to sell to.

Example: Your expertise is weight loss and fitness. You have the following products: A fitness blog, an e-book on fitness routines, personal coaching sessions on fitness regimens, and seminars/keynotes on improving your life through diet and exercise.

Would a 20-year old woman, 45-year old man and 75-year old retiree need the same advice and fitness program? Certainly not.

If you are already making a healthy living, then you are probably already doing a good job with your target customer. You may want to develop new products  and services for them, or begin to serve another customer base. You can follow these steps to tune up your business, or seek new customers.

If you are just starting out, or struggling to build a customer base read these next steps:

Step 1: Pick a niche. Let’s say your best expertise is men 35-50 who have an desk job, are married with family commitments and need solutions that fit a busy schedule. Start there.

Step 2: Target your blog to readers in that niche. You don’t have to become macho, but avoid tips that won’t appeal to that target audience.

Step 3: Modify your e-book (or create one). Take your 10 best tips on fitness and expand them so you have about 20 pages. Publish it and provide it as a free incentive for signing up for your e-mail list.

Step 4: Modify your marketing for your coaching sessions. Target your specific audience with methods they can use and would pay to learn. For instance, don’t offer me a plan where we will work out 2-3 hours per day for 3 months. It won’t fit my schedule and it won’t look feasible to me.

Step 5: Look for opportunities to provide your expertise out there. Attend networking events, speak to non-profit organizations, get out in front of people.

Then, do what you are good at. Provide your expertise, solve problems, and serve your customer.

You know that the utility infielder doesn’t make nearly the same salary as the starting shortstop. If you are that shortstop, and your marketing says “Plays Great Infield, any position” I won’t find you on my google search for shortstops, will I? And if I do, I’ll pick a specialist in shortstoppyness before I pick you.

Same with the fitness instructor. If I find your blog, and the last three posts are about post-pregnancy, teen fitness and water aerobics for seniors, I will be bouncing to another blog permanently. So will everyone else. That means you’ve done more work, and attracted fewer customers. Ouch.

If you take some time to focus your efforts and narrow your niche, you can improve both your own time management and your credibility with customers. Take that next step and decide where your expertise is best served. By doing this, you’ll switch from appeal to all, serve none to appeal to my niche, serve my niche.

Are you stuck in the middle?

Once again, I went off and read a blog that made me think. This blog, called The Fluent Self is written by Havi Brooks, who has a really cool writing style. Beyond that, you may want to check out the page yourself because it might be a bit risky for me to try to describe her further (read her about page and you’ll see why).

Back to the blog entry itself.  Titled Exit the Middle, the discussion is (like all good points) a really good, brief story. This story is about a yoga class, but it was pretty easy to see some direct correlations to some examples for speakers.

Last week, a Toastmaster member asked why members would work on a second (or more) Competent Communicator (CC) award? What is the value to completing what is considered the basic manual?

In the example in Havi’s post, there is a yoga class that was taught in a way that was difficult for basic students, but not so tough for more seasoned people. At the end of the class, the newer students were sweating and so were the really advanced ones. Those in the middle were not only mostly sweat-free, but complaining about the lack of challenge to the class.

So why were the most advanced members sweating like newbie’s?

Newbie’s – Challenged by the relative difficulty of the class
Advanced – Challenged themselves to get the most from the class

And the middle? They were not challenged by the class itself, and not able and/or willing to challenge themselves.

That’s the answer to the public speaker question. Newer Toastmasters are challenged by improving their speaking skills with that first manual. Advanced members (sometimes DTMs, but not always) have found ways to use that manual to challenge themselves and continue to improve.

Those in the middle? Havi says that you are stuck in the middle for as long as you choose to be. You have to be the one that decides to get unstuck. Of course, it will take a little more than a decision, it will take work. That is true whether you’re stuck in yoga-middle, Toastmasters-middle, or any other middle in your life.

Maybe the question isn’t “are you stuck in the middle?” I think the question is this: in what part of your life are you stuck in the middle, and when are you going to decide to step out?

While I work on getting that on a T-shirt, read Havi’s post and think about how you can make that change. If you are in that middle, then you are at a point where the external challenge is no longer a challenge. Look at how you can challenge yourself. For ideas, look at how others challenge themselves. Example, when I wanted to challenge myself to be a better speaker, I started a blog (yeah, this one).

I hate to sound like an 80′s business book, but think outside the box.  You could go in a totally different direction, like yoga. And after you sweat, you can write a really great speech about getting out of the middle…

Is everyone out there on LinkedIn? Facebook? Twitter?

What about Digg? MySpace? Friendster? Squidoo?

Should I go on? After all, there are more. Lots more. Did I mention Lots? Lots.

There are some tremendous advantages to being connected through on-line social media. Being able to keep in touch with people who you may not see on a regular basis makes it easy to stay connected and know what’s going on.

However…

Nothing beats face-to-face networking. Nothing. Ever. At all. Seriously.

You get so much more done face-to-face. Conversations are more efficient, non-verbals make things more clear (and human) and it’s just plain true that people still put more value into real life human contact than they put into words on a Tweet.

Chances are that your town has some great real-life networking opportunities. Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, and a plethora of specialty clubs (PMI, Toastmasters, etc.) make it easy to stay in touch and really get to know some great people.

Don’t spend so many hours on-line that you don’t have time for real humans. Take the time to see what’s out there and make the commitment to get involved. The value will far outweigh the cost in time and a few bucks.

P.S. That’s the best way to make new friends to add to your LinkedIn account…

In Part one, you learned the first steps to creating an Icebreaker speech; the first speech you will give in your Toastmasters club.

For this lesson, we’ll take our example message and work on our opening remarks. You may wonder how we can craft these without determining our three main points, right?

Good call. Let’s draft out those three points first. In part four (after developing the closing in part three) we will deal with developing those three points further. But for now we can use a farily easy technique to draft out these points.

For the example message, lets look at a basic chronological Icebreaker speech.
First Point: Where I grew up
Second Point: Where I work
Third Point: My family and hobbies

For the opening, we want to:
1. Avoid pointless pleasantries
2. Make our promise
3. Provide a road-map

What are pointless pleasantries? Things like “glad to be here”, “nice weather”, “Mr. toastmaster”, or anything that doesn’t add to the value of your conversation with the audience. Better to open with a powerful question, a story or a relevant quote.

What about the promise? “In the next five minutes you are going to learn a bit more about me and what brought me to this Toastmasters club”

And the road-map? This is just a way to let them know what those three main points are.

“Dr. Stephen Covey says the seventh habit of highly effective people is to ‘Sharpen the Saw.’ In the next 5 minutes you are going to hear a bit about my life, and what brought me here to sharpen my saw with you. First, you’ll learn about where I was raised, then what I do for XYZ company here in Wichita. Finally you’ll hear about what I like to do with my off-work time and why I’ve added Toastmasters to my life.”

Then you’ll finish the opening with a transition to first main point:

“Of course, being a Toastmaster isn’t what I thought I would be doing when I grew up. In fact, would you believe in high school I wanted to be an Architect? Here’s what really happened…”

That is a simple opeing for the Icebreaker speech. Next would be that first point about growing up. We’ll discuss that more later in the week, along with the other main points.

Tomorrow, we’ll work on the closing statement. This is where you want your best story or other material. You may look to tie it to the opening, such as “I may not have become an Architect, but now I …”

The rest of the closing tomorrow…

<Editors note: Here is an excellent (and recent) related blog entry from Craig Valentine. http://www.craigvalentine.com/open-your-speech-and-open-their-minds/>