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.

He likened this to how being a speaker is like having a store, with a storefront, shelves and a check out counter while having no product on the shelves. If you were going to start a business, you would start with a product and then open the store.

Imagine if you instead opened a store and then when people stopped by to shop, saw the empty store and asked what your product was. Your reply – “what do you need?”

The real question to ask yourself isn’t “can I be a professional speaker?” It’s “What do I have to offer my audience?” If you can answer that, then you have something to put on the shelves.

I watch a lot of people working on improving their speaking ability, and they tend to fall into two camps: those who seek help to become better and those that don’t.

Those that look for help and listen to the advice they’re given progress at a better rate than they would without the help. This is probably, in part, because seeking help also means doing more work. After all, if you don’t ask for help, you don’t have work to do to implement any improvements, since none are being offered.

If you are one struggling to ask for help, you could start by asking yourself “why?”

- Do you think you don’t need it? Try asking and find out if you see improvement

- Do you think you don’t know anyone who could help? Start by asking for a recommendation – someone to help you find help

- Do you think no one is good enough to help? Narrow your focus – instead of looking for someone to help you be a better speaker, try finding someone who can help with storytelling, or using visual aides or maybe just someone to help manage Q&A sessions better

There is always room for improvement, but it can be difficult to do in a vacuum. Try getting a coach to help you with some aspect of your speaking and see the dramatic difference a little help can make.

You may have heard the old reference that 80% of all statistics are made-up. Well, it seems like 95% of the time I hear about “everybody”, it doesn’t apply to me.

The corollary to this overused word? “Nobody”. As in “nobody does that anymore”, or “nobody likes congress.” It may even feel true sometimes, but the next time you use the word everybody or nobody, remember that you may alienate part of your audience. The part that isn’t nobody…

Simple vs. Easy

These words are not only used interchangeably, but also as a redundant pair on a regular basis. If fact, it is simple and easy to use these words incorrectly.

If you find the difference confusing, think of them like this: It’s simple to get more aerobic activity in your life, just walk for an hour each day. However, that may not be easy for everyone.

Necessary vs. Sufficient

These don’t get mixed up by the author or speaker so much, but sometimes by the listener. For example, it’s considered necessary to have valuable content in your blog for it to be a success. But all the great content in the world won’t insure success. It is necessary to have that content, but not sufficient. When you’re giving advice about things that have to happen, it may be important to mention that more may be needed.

Think about weight-loss ads that say “success is not typical.” That’s because their products were just one of the necessary steps in the overall program that made the photos you see happen.

What kind of word misuse do you encounter? Better, which ones have you misused yourself?

More importantly (as we enter the contest season), how do you give a winning evaluation?

First – Open Strong. The first words out of your mouth should be something great about the presentation. i.e. “Mike, it’s clear that you did quite a bit of research to bring us this presentation, and it showed. Mister Contest Master, fellow toastmasters and guests, Mike’s speech really hit the mark today, wouldn’t you agree?” Find something that you saw the audience react to and use it to get them to agree with you early.

Avoid: “For the next 3 minutes and 30 seconds…” in your intro. It’s redundant, it wastes time, and worst of all is says your main concern is the clock, not the speaker.

Next - Be Specific. There’s nothing more useless than hearing “if you made your closing longer, it would have made the speech stronger.” Really? You don’t say? Your advice is “add more closing”?

Try this: “Teresa, your closing felt rushed to me. You want to accomplish a couple of things during that time. One, summerize your points, and two, leave us with your best takeaway. When you see the green light, that should be your cue to finish up your last main point. Be done by the yellow and you’ll have time for a complete closing…”

Always – Care. They can tell when you don’t. This starts before the speaker is introduced. You have to approach the evaluation as if the speaker came to you and said, “My job depends on getting this right. Can you help me?” If your goal isn’t to help the speaker, then the judges probably won’t help you.

Finally – Summarize and be positive. The most important feedback you can give is to tell them what they specifically did well, and how to repeat it.

Avoid: “I look forward to your next speech.” Not because it’s trite, but because it’s vague. Be specific. Give them a reason you’re looking forward to the next speech, “John, You really hit the nail on the head with your woodworking tips, and I look forward to seeing how you’re next speech will give us more cool ideas for home improvement.”

Other thoughts: I’ve seen quite a few techniques, like G.L.O.V.E.,  A.C.E. and others used in competition, and the results are mixed. When I watch these evaluations, I ask myself is what you’re doing for the speaker or for yourself? If you use one of those techniques, it’s for the speaker. If you spend time describing it first, then it’s for you. Make sense?

Will these tips gaurentee you a win? Of course not. But if you open strong, care, and be specific in your feedback you’ll be competitive and more importantly you’ll help your speaker keep getting better. Isnt’ that what it’s really about?

1. Toastmasters has the flexibility to let you choose your path to success.

Many Toastmasters fall into one of three groups: getting over your fear of speaking, trying to become a better speaker, and enjoying the experience with friends. Note: you may be in one, two, or all three categories at different times or all at once.

If you’re working to get over your fear, there is some value in mixing up your topic selection more often than not. You need to focus on being comfortable, and finding your voice (and topic) is important there. Using a variety of topics can help you find your strengths and improve where you may not have known you needed to.

When you’re working to improve your skills, now may be the time to revisit some recent topics. Take what you’ve done before, work in some of your recent improvements (i.e. different opening, more audience interaction, etc.) and get more (fresh) feedback. This is especially helpful if you have something you need to do well at work, or even when you are competing in a Toastmaster contest.

Do you just like enjoying the experience with friends? It can be good to revisit some topics here too. I recently gave a speech on Fantasy Football to one club. It was fun for me, but the audience had very few football fans. I knew another club had some sports fans, so I modified the speech a bit and gave it again. I added five jerseys to my wardrobe, and pulled one off per main point. It added some humor and made it fun for me and the audience too.

2. Great speakers and leaders aren’t born, they’re made.

Two things amaze me. One is the person who make a dramatic improvement by working on their skills, integrating feedback, and continuing to want to improve. Second is the person who hides behind the “great leaders (or speakers) are born” myth.

3. Someone is glad you are (were) a member.

If you are a member, chances are really good that at least one person is glad you are. In fact, there are probably three, four or maybe dozens who are glad you’re taking the time to come out to meetings, speak, evaluate, and be involved.

If you stopped going to Toastmasters, I’d make some good money betting that at least one member misses you. Maybe it was your unique take on the Wicked Witch of the West (probably copyrighted), your great tips for their speeches (or blog), or perhaps just your smile. Don’t hold it against them if they were to shy to say “thank you” or just mention that you are great. After all, they’re there to get over their fear too.

Think about this: what brought you here? Specifically, what were you looking for when you first visited a Toastmasters club? What were you looking for when you joined? Are you still looking?

Another safe bet? You can find it. That confidence, that skill, that greatness you’re looking for. Next time you go to a club meeting, ask for it by name. You’ll find people there that are ready in willing to help you reach your goals.

What are your three lessons?

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!

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.