The Premier Blog For Quickly Improving Your Public Speaking, Presentation & Communication Skills
drjim Just in case you’ve forgotten it, the #1 question on the minds of any audience that is seated and waiting for you to begin talking to them is “Why should I even bother listening to you?“. This means that in order for you to have any hope of making an impact on this audience, you’re … Read more
I just got back from spending the better part of a week up in Chicago at a big health care conference (HIMSS09). This was an amazing opportunity for me to sit back and watch somewhere in the neighborhood of about 100 different presenters get up and do their very best job at communicating. One of … Read more
One question that I keep getting asked over and over by speakers that I am working with is if storytelling is such a powerful communication tool, then why isn’t it used more in business settings? It’s a good question, but the answer is a little bit complicated. Where Did All The Stories Go? I can’t … Read more
Even if you don’t work in the world of high-finance, you surely know who Alan Greenspan is. He was the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. There’s no question that this guy is smart, but can he deliver a good keynote speech? Where It Happened While attending the recent HIMSS health … Read more
We can talk about how to be a better communicator all we want, but in the end it comes down to learning – and we all do this in different ways. One great way to discover what a speaker should (or should not) do is to watch ’em in action. This time around we’re going … Read more
We’ve all had that moment of disbelief – you know the one, when someone recorded you saying something and then played it back to you. You listened to the voice coming out of the speaker and you did what we all do – you winced and said “No way that’s me!” However, yes it was … Read more
I was quietly minding my own business the other day when Lisa Braithwaite from the blog Speak Schmeak reached out to me via email and asked me if I’d be willing to help her to get the word out about some upcoming (almost) free public speaking training that’s going to be held up in Los … Read more
When you find yourself giving a speech, you quickly realize that what you are missing is any sort of tools with which to give the speech. If you were a painter, you’d have a canvas, brushes, paints, thinners, etc. with which to make your creation. However, when you are giving a speech it’s just you … Read more
Love ’em or hate ’em, politicians are by and large fantastic communicators. If you take a look at their technique they may be lacking; however, they sure seem to be very good at getting their point across and wining audiences over. Wouldn’t it be great if we could figure out how they do that? There … Read more
We spend all of this time coming up with our next speech, getting each and every word just right, practicing the speech, the gestures, the pauses, only to get killed before we even open our mouths to speak. How does this crime occur? Simple – whoever is running the show delivers a bad introduction and … Read more