Last weekend I attended our District’s Toastmasters Leadership Institute (TLI) training in Kansas City, and I spoke during our “Lunch and Learn” session.  The topic was Team Building. Including the lunch itself, the session was in a 50-minute block. Although I did receive a lot of positive feedback, there were a few things I could (should!) have done better.

First Lesson: Start Strong
Mistake I made: Starting too soon after the lunch was provided. When it comes to a lunch and learn event, you want to give your audience enough time to get through most of their food. Especially if you are like me and you build a lot of audience interaction into your presentations.
Why I did it: No good reason; I just started a bit too quickly. My excuse was trying to make sure we had the most time possible for the presentation. Looking back, I think that 3-5 fewer minutes with a more effective beginning would have led to a better session.
Effect the mistake had:  People were not very responsive to early questions. This caused the energy in the room to stay lower than I would have liked.
Possible fixes, on-the-fly:
Ask rhetorical questions – I could have said “I know you’re eating so this is rhetorical…does anyone like working for an autocratic leader?” This would allow them to participate in their own heads without feeling bad about not responding with their mouth full.
Switch from an audience-interaction opening to a storytelling opening. Since storytelling has not been my strongest method, this is the one I continue to work on myself.  Note for fellow Toastmasters, I’m starting the Storytelling manual as my next Advanced Manual. Craig Valentine has some great material on the subject.
Fix for next time: Allow a few more minutes to finish the main course.

Second Lesson: Get them back after an exercise (or break)
Mistake I made: I tried to get their attention after an exercise by simply talking (i.e. ” can I have your attention”). You’ve seen it before, just plowing ahead with my material as they slowly quieted down. It was not very effective…
Why I did it: I’ve seen quite a bit of the “Clap once if you hear my voice” technique, and I thought (poorly) that I wanted to avoid doing it again.
Effect the mistake had: It took folks time to get on board, also those ready to listen couldn’t hear me clearly over the murmuring.
Possible fixes on-the-fly:
Use the “clap once if you hear my voice…clap twice if you hear my voice” method. The nice thing about this method is you can switch to it anytime without materials.
Fix for next time: Lesson I learned from Ed Tate - Use other items to capture attention, like a toy clapper, chimes or other “polite/cute” noisemaker.

Third Lesson: Set expectations for group exercises
Mistake I made: I ran an exercise for the group. The idea was to get into pairs and ask each other a couple of “get to know each other” questions. I didn’t tell them that I would call on a few of them to share the results.
Why I did it: I initially planned to run the exercise and not include audience response due to time. As we went through, I looked at the clock and saw that I indeed had time to allow a couple of examples from the audience, so I made the change.
Effect the mistake had: Many of the folks simply did the exercise without taking notes.
Possible fixes on-the-fly:
Don’t change the exercise on-the-fly. This would have avoided the issue completely.
Walk up to one or two people during the exercise and ask them to be my “volunteer” when called upon. If I had tried this, I could have had two people with notes ready and my change would have worked more smoothly. 
Fix for next time: Provide a handout with the exercise defined and stick with it. I could always trim down the exercise, but adding to it on-the-fly was a mistake.

Learning lessons from your speaking doesn’t do much good if you don’t make the changes based on those lessons. Worse still if you (like I did) choose to fall back into an old habit (or three) when you’re in front of an audience. Lucky for me, the Toastmasters audience didn’t beat me up too bad. Had I misused those techniques in a paid environment, I may not get asked back.

The trick here is to develop habits that work in your chosen speaking enviornment. Since that includes lunch sessions and group interaction, my speaking checklist needs to include the three “fixes for next time” from above. If you don’t have a checklist, now is the time to get one started.

There are a few of the elements of deliberate practice that apply well to any of us trying to get better at something, and especially to becoming a better (or professional) speaker:

1. It is designed specifically to improve performance.

2. It can be repeated a lot.

3. Feedback on results is continuously available.

4. It’s highly demanding mentally.

5. It isn’t much fun.

The interesting thing is, the first 4 of those 5 clearly describe the Toastmasters educational system. So, is the author right? Does it need to meet all criteria to really make you a better speaker?

Here’s one theory – Toastmasters isn’t specifically designed to make you a pro, it’s designed to help you overcome your fear of speaking in public. To do that, you can get by with 3 or 4 of the above criteria, and have fun while doing it.

But to really see improvement, do you have to give up the fun? I think that this is true, but that doesn’t mean 100% no-fun.

The Toastmasters meeting – Fun

Giving your speech – Fun

Real practice and preperation – not so much fun

Receiving candid feedback – not so much fun either

Taking that feedback and using it in the next speech – kinda neutral

Using the manuals to track progress, feedback, and keep moving forward – fun (if you’re a bit of a psycho)

Completing Toastmasters awards (CC, ACs, etc) – Fun

The question you have to ask yourself is, what is your goal? If you just want to be comfortable and stay “in practice” then you can stay on the 100% fun track as a Toastmaster. That is, keep giving manual speeches and getting stage time.

If you want to see real improvement, and even be a pro-quality (or contest-quality) speaker, then your practice should be more deliberate and focused, and that means that some of your work (preparation) will not be fun.

Giving those impromptu manual speeches can be good for your comfort and keeping you in practice, but there’s a reason that you don’t see much improvement that way. Only through deliberate effort can you make the improvements you want to be ready for that contest or that pro career.

I think that approaching this a lot like a physical workout method makes sense too. Bodybuilders have what they call periods of growth and maintenance times. During the periods of growth they are doing the harder bodybuilding work, and during the maintenance times they are making sure that they maintain their muscle mass but not pushing themselves as hard.

To be a better speaker, give that a try. One CC manual is total prep and hard work. The next one is maintenance – off the cuff or other low-prep speeches. Don’t just blab, but do enough to give a good speech and get some quality feedback, and still have fun. Then, back to the high-prep CC.

By adding some Deliberate Practice to your existing routine, you can prove that Talent is Overrated and you to can continue to become a better speaker. If you want more info on deliberate practice, I totally recommend that you read the book. I’ll have the review posted this Sunday.

For instance, if you want a website you can do it yourself, or get a pro.

If you want to speak in front of audiences, schedule them yourself or get a pro (speakers bureau).

If you want to create products, such as audio or video programs do it yourself, or get a pro.

But what if, like me, you agree with Stephen Covey when he says, “find the third alternative“?

What if you could find a pro just before they become a pro?

Yesterday, I spent the morning in a video studio watching my friend Arlen Busenitz (of speakinginfo.com fame), who is also my partner in www.speakerblogger.com, creating one of his upcoming products. The thing about this studio was:

1. Pro Quality
2. Far less expensive than a Pro Studio
3. wait for it…at a local college

Stephen Covey loves the win-win situation, and this is a prime example. The college student gets real world experience that can fit on their resume as well at the practical experience (plus some lunch money), and the speaker can get near-pro quality for a fraction of the cost (keeping some lunch money too).

This doesn’t just work in the video department. I’ve known people to do this for book editing of self-published work as well as audio recordings.

Of course, you may find that some skill sets don’t meet your needs. This certainly isn’t an option for everyone. However, if you have the time and want to save a few bucks while helping a future professional get to where they are going, this third alternative could be for you.

What an amazing evening. Toastmasters International 2010 Golden Gavel recipient, Carolyn Kepcher gave a keynote speech to be remembered at our dinner on Friday evening.

She started off with the story of how she began working for the Trump organization, and how she ended up on the TV Show The Apprentice. Her descriptions were quite interesting, including the references to running in heels (with visual). She gave an additional insight to those of us that saw the first season of that show.

It turns out that her fame on that TV show led to her receiving mail from women around the globe. That probably isn’t surprising, but Carolyn said this wasn’t fan mail she was receiving, but letters from working women everywhere looking for advice from her on how to handle difficult workplace situations.

This led her to the realization of how she could make a difference to those women, and others as well. She started http://www.workherway.com, to provide amswers for working women. By creating a strong network of experts, they are able to provide trusted advice to women to successfully navigate their career path.

She went on to redefine work-life balance as work-life integration. She told vivid stories of telling Donald Trump about her pregnancy 6-months in and how her daughter, at age four, told classmates that “Mommy goes to a board room and fires people.”

This was another case where the speaker was so good I had to go ahead and buy her book, Carolyn 101, Business Lessons from The Apprentice’s Straight Shooter. Although I had her sign it for my wife (who also respects her), I have to admit I will read it myself as well. Look for my review on the 22nd of August.

Toastmasters made another fine choice for the Golden Gavel recipient, and I know from the long line of folks picking up that book, seeking autographs and getting pictures that I’m not the only one who feels that way. 

Tomorrow…Business Meeting (Go Bash!) and that contest thingee, oh, the Toastmasters 2010 International Speech Contest. Stay tuned…

In the last few months I’ve been reading some great blogs, and decided to try one of the products I saw. There was a product that was touted as something that would help me see success as a freelance writer. In what is an understandable sales technique, it was offered at a special rate until the end of 2009.

In mid-December, I decided to allocate the required investment (~$87) and clicked on the link to purchase.

The only option for purchasing this product was to use PayPal, a normally reliable service where I have had an active account for about eight years.

For some reason, PayPal decided to decline me this transaction. Per PayPal’s policy they “don’t care”. Actually, that’s a mis-quote. Their site says something to the effect that if they denied an individual transaction, it was in your best interest to insure people aren’t mis-using your account and they don’t have a method for overruling this on any specific transaction. It’s something they’re proud of. I sent a note anyway asking for assistance. No reply.

Okay. PayPal is PayPal. I’m stuck there, but I still wanted the product. I clicked on the “contact” button in the corner, and sent a note asking, essentially, “may I please buy your product?” I said something about requesting a different form of payment.

My logic was that PayPal might be willing to help eventually, but the seller would want to figure something out right now.

Of course, if that had happened, this would be a review of the product, not a review of not being able to buy the product, right?

I did receive a follow-up e-mail the next day, and was told “they would look into it”. That was, temporarily, comforting. However, the lack of follow through into mid-January is disheartening, to say the least. And of course, now a look on that site shows the product ”is temporarily off the market.” So if I wanted to go out of my way and create a new PayPal account with a different credit card, I’m still out of luck.

From the business point of view, what do you think goes through your customer’s mind when something like this happens? Here are some of the thoughts, temporary and permanent, that I have had in the last month:

Do I still want this product?(no one referred me, so in my mind I was taking a risk anyway)
Do they even care if I want this product?
Will they even miss the lost sale?
What if I had been successful and bought the product, would this be how they would support any future issues?
Are there comparable products out there? (and yes, I am now looking)
How do I handle my disappointment? (clearly I’m blogging it)
Is all of this even worth my time?(hmmm…only for the single blog value)

As I prepare to deploy my own products on-line, here are some lessons this experience has taught me (and yes, I’ve heard many of these before):

1. Decide on a response standard and stick with it. (i.e. one business day)
- No one wanting to send you money should be made to wait more than 72 hours to be allowed to do it.
- Same standard for any reasonable customer requests, even if it’s an “I’ll find out” answer to get time to research a better answer.
2. If you say “I’ll get back to you” to your customer, do it. Especially if you take time to post multiple blog entries in the same time period.
3. Plan for back-up payment options, in case your primary doesn’t work. If your audience is a blog/web audience, they’re probably used to on-line transactions. That doesn’t mean they should have accounts at every payment site out there. That said, PayPal is well known and (usually) reliable.
4. If you leave a product page up with a “temporarily off the market” note, maybe mention why or when it will be back.
5. If you decide to blow a customer off, you might want to make sure she/he doesn’t have a blog!!!

Final note:  This post is based on what is probably a blip in their process. With this site’s reputation, I doubt this happens to many people. My idea here was not to rip them, but to show what can happen when the blips go uncorrected. Maybe their $87 loss will be my gain down the road…

Here’s the good news: PowerPoint never fails. The bad news, only you (the presenter) can fail. That is, of course, from the audience’s point of view.

That may sound a bit unfair (especially if you read it aloud), but it’s really not. Any aspect of your presentation can cause problems (i.e. lost notes, lack of practice, or bad slides), but you control how you handle those problems. In the case of a busted PowerPoint presentation, you have two choices that are totally dependent on you:

1. Be prepared so you can recover:
- Have other visual aides (i.e. handouts, flip chart, etc) ready if they are critical to your presentation
- Have the slides printed in case you were planning to use them as notes
- Practice your presentation with and without the slides, so you can work it either way
or

2. Fail because you weren’t ready

Your call.

This question came to me recently from a friend who is probably a better speaker than I, but read my post on language use and decided to ask for a more specific opinion.

First and foremost, a quote is a quote. If you decide to change the quote (i.e. remove a word you don’t like and replace it with one you do) without changing the meaning, that is called paraphrasing…not quoting.

If you want to quote someone, you need to say what they said.

Second, do you need that part of the quote to make it effective, or to make your point? Would a similar (i.e. clean) quote from another source work? Will paraphrasing best help you with your point? If you’ve answered those questions and decided you need the quote, then use it.

Oh wait…did you consider your audience? For instance, a pastor can easily say “Hell” in a sermon where he is describing the place in the biblibal sense. But his audience might not appreciate an alternate usage, such as “Should you go out and sin? Hell no!”

Your audience may not be a church group. However, a professional setting such as a presentation at work or in front of a local professional group (i.e. Rotary, Chamber, or Project Management Institute chapter) may have similar sensibilities.

Even those in your audience who occationally curse in thier own conversations may be put off but an unnecessary four-letter word. That may not seem fair, or even be fair, but that doesn’t matter. If the language isn’t appropriate for your audience, change the language. It’s no different than if you used a series of accounting acronyms on an audience of lawyers. If the laungage doesn’t fit…it doesn’t fit.

Can you find an occation where it is appropriate to violate that rule? I’m sure you can. I tried it out just a couple of paragraphs ago. And I wasn’t even quoting a real person, just providing a fictitious example.

In the end, it’s your credibility on the line. You make the call.  You can’t (and shouldn’t) expect to please everyone, so decide which niche is paying the bills and find your fit with them. When in doubt, you’ll never be blamed when you err on the side of professionalism.

There seems to be a number of different marketing ideas out there, and there are two that I notice in effect that include free content.

First, there is free content that is designed to just whet your appetite for the premium content that is, of course, not so free. This model seems to be built on the premise that if you get too much good stuff for free, you won’t buy the premium content, products or services. 

I’m learning that this is quickly becoming a failed business model. Why?  Simple: Humans like you don’t have time for free crap. You want value for you time…not just for your money!

Duh? Yes, I know. But so many providers out there are thinking that their stuff is the best stuff that you can find. They think once you find it, you’ll stop looking. After all, their crap is as good as the rest. But no, you’re gong back to Google to look again and find something better. Then, once you find the really good content (and you are finding it), you’re doing three things:

1. You are sticking with it.
2. You are telling your friends in real life.
3. You are posting about it on FaceBook, Digg and Squidoo.

You might even be buying from those better sites. And here is the why (and the second kind of free content marketing):

Some providers are making content available for free that stands all by itself. It’s good enough that you don’t have to buy from the provider. This may seem like a risky business model, but it’s not. Let’s look at some examples:

LinkedIn -Yes, LinkedIn has premium features available for a cost. Many users don’t even realize it. How cool is that? Here’s how it works – the basic features are plenty for a large percentage of users, and cost almost nothing to maintain. In fact, it’s the free users that help sell the premium features to the small percentage of users that need (or just want) them. After all, who would pay for those if there were only 500 users on the whole system? No one. But with nearly everybody there (or so it seems), there’s a market for those wanting to use those features professionally. And because the main site is free and worth the time, more people sign up each day. Imagine if it required you to pay $10 a month once you had 10 or more contacts? Guess what? 50,000 abandoned accounts and no one wanting premium access.

WordPress - All hail WordPress! That’s right, it’s free and the more people that use it, the more that want it. But if you need more (space, users, hosting ad free, etc.) there is a premium service. Again, the free version stands on it’s own and you could go years using that every day and not miss a thing. Making that available makes the premium version more valuable, and therefore attracts some paying customers. Sweet!

Copyblogger - and other content-driven blog sites (like…ahem, mine). Some of these may (most do) have premium content that you can buy. The fact, though, is that you could spend days going through the free stuff and learn a ton of useful things. The extra content is totally optional.

What makes this work? The fact is that humans (like you) value useful stuff. Period. People that provide useful stuff (could also be you) will find that they are in demand.

Here’s the real catch. If you don’t have enough content that you can give useful information away for free, then you probably don’t have enough useful content to make a living anyway. Read more…learn more…experience more…write about THAT and see where it takes you.

If you’re looking for the free content, look no further. Not only do I buy into the goal of providing it, but I also like to point out where else I’m finding it. So what do you think? Which marketing model is for you?

For me, standing in line at Target awaiting the 5:00am opening gave me some free time to reflect (since there wasn’t any light to read by) and think about the power of preparation, and how preparing for your next speech could be much like preparing for the onslaught of customers looking for a deal.

First- Make a promise

At Target, they had to decide what to put on sale. This included:
Determining inventory
Anticipating demand (not everyone was waiting in line for a $3.99 copy of Elf)
Chosing their time frames (opening time, length of certain sales, etc.)
Getting the word out – those pervasive sales circulars

For you it’s about determining what your topic will be:
What’s in your inventory?
What does your audience need to hear?
How long do you have to say it?
How will you get an audience to show up?

Second-  Preparation

At Target:
Building set-up – prepositioning expected hot sellers (like the Westinghouse TV that I missed by about 10 spaces in line)
Provided externals – map of the store and some free eco-shopping bags (I was too far back in line, but it was a looong line)
Staff clearly prepared to answer about any sales item…I bet they had to take a quiz or something

You:
Room set-up
Visuals and hand-outs ready to go
Rehearse and internalize your topic – don’t memorize it…know it

Third- Execution

Target:
Open the doors on time (5:00am)
Every checkout stand open (I was out with my purchase by 5:20am)
People pre-positioned throughout the store to answer questions

You:
Stay within your allotted time
Use the stage, not just one sopt
Be able to handle the odd question/unexpected remark with professionalism

Of course, there were some other great examples I saw, such as JC Penny’s (Snow Globe!), Best Buy (love my new netbook) and Wal-Mart. There were also some less-prepared stores, but I won’t mention them by name (one was the place I expected to by my netbook…a whole nother post).

For the speakers out there, these tips aren’t the only things you need to make a great presentation, but they are some things you can think about when getting that next speech off of the ground. After all, Target wasn’t built in a day…right?

If you decide to watch it, you’ll probably notice a few things specifically:

1. I had 2 main points
- You have to read to keep up
- Books on CD are the way to fit that into your schedule

2. I did manage to get a few laughs
- I started by asking to raise your hand if you have too much free time
- Somehow my reference to an on-the-cheap car stereo (boombox in the passenger seat) was amusing “Who has $40?”
- Call back to another speech about a person finding new work
- Evelyn-Wood-read-at-the-stop-sign joke from the post

3. I had some mistakes
- “I’m going to tell you the secret to reading while driving” instead of “You’re going to learn…”
- Stood in one area (this was partly intentional to stay centered on the video)
- Not very solid vocal variety – this is a recurring theme
- A few obvious reference to my notes
- 58% sounded like 15%

4. Nobody collapsed from stage fright

I had a good time turning that post into a speech and watching it on YouTube gave me an opportunity to see things I can use again and things I need to improve on.

Like I said in the conclusion…pick up a book and turn the key!