• Do you want them to buy something?
• Do you want them to schedule a meeting with you?
• Do you want them to join a cause?
• Do you want them to invest in something?
• Do you want them to learn something specific?

Now that you know the outcome of your speech, you can more easily select the content that will best bring about that outcome.

Know what you want to accomplish will help you choose the right stories, the most compelling facts and even the correct organization that will move your audience to do what you want it to do.

As you create your presentation, always ask yourself does this piece … visual aid, story, anecdote, fact, etc. … move the audience closer to or further from the goal I have for them? If your answer is “no” … weed it out — no matter how much you like it!

Much has been written about the leadership (or lack of leadership) crisis in America today. No business is immune to this crisis, and some are even more susceptible to it than others. Real leaders today are few and far between. We have great technicians and great managers, but few great leaders.

To truly succeed as a leader today, we cannot simply “go through the motions.” We must charge ahead at full speed. In this hyper-competitive world, it’s not enough just to show up and look good. Leadership is a full-contact, sometimes risky position with no “hazardous duty” pay.

The term “full-contact” generally brings to mind the image of physical contact. But it presents itself in other ways as well.

First, as leaders, we must be fully in contact with ourselves. This is not the natural state of things for many of us, and it’s far easier to be out of touch with our thoughts, moods, and biases.

As leaders, we must also be in full contact with our own purpose. Our purpose is our vision of the future, our values and mission. The importance of purpose cannot be overstated. Our role as leaders is to change the status quo. We must always keep one eye trained on that future that we want to create. And we must have a fundamental sense of the actions needed to arrive at that future–to achieve that vision.

Next, we leaders must be in full contact with others in our organization. This includes peers, subordinates, and senior management. Leadership is about change but it is also about behaviors. Leadership involves a great deal of soft skills and interaction with people. These interactions cannot be casual if the leader is to be respected and to make an impact.

The leader must be in full contact with the values of the organization. Ultimately, the rest of the organization will live up to, or down to, the level set by the leader. In the absence of corporate values, that level is open for discussion and can vary. With firm corporate values, the people in the organization have sound principles by which to guide their behavior. Enron had values written on paper, but the leadership of the organization lost contact with those values….

Today, it is also essential to be in full contact with customers. They are demanding and have high expectations. Ultimately, they pay our salary. Yet, far too often, businesses operate in a vacuum and are blind to the customers’ needs. This data is borne out in many image surveys that indicate businesses are, in a word, unresponsive. The leader who is in full contact with his or her customers actively seeks them out and engages them in conversation–real talk about more than just the product at hand.

Finally, full-contact leaders are aware that the being in a position of leadership involves some risk. Like athletes engaged in full-contact sports, these leaders know they may take some hits (and give some out, too), but they don’t shy away from the impact. They recognize it as an integral part of a full-contact position.

Full-contact leaders must merge all these contact points into a single, unified effort. They set direction, articulate the vision, and know just where they want to bring the organization. They can visualize it in their mind, smell it, taste it, feel it. They are able to balance multiple perspectives because of their grounded perspective.

© 2006 FireStarter Speaking and Consulting

Wally Adamchik is President of FireStarter Speaking and Consulting. His new book is NO YELLING: The Nine Secrets of Marine Corps Leadership You MUST Know TO WIN In Business. Visit him online at www.beafirestarter.com. He can be reached at 919-673-9499 or wally@beafirestarter.com.

Photography: Still and Video
Invest in some good photographs of yourself. You’ll want both head shots and action shots. Once you have those, you want to use them consistently in your marketing. Places you should consider including or uploading your photos are:

• Your website
• Flickr
• Social Media

You’ll also want to include video in your “image” marketing. Record all your speaking opportunities and upload the best to YouTube and Facebook. Create tips videos. Create slide show videos. Post those, as well, on YouTube and Facebook.

Make sure you tag and label all these photographs and videos so that they are readily identifiable and are more easily found by search engines.

Social Media
There are plenty of social media sites out there, but the big ones right now are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Find out which ones your prospects are hanging out at and make sure you have a presence there.

Your Website
You need a website that focuses on your speaking business. It should focus on your message and, for better search engine results, it should be updated frequently (at least once a week). This is where having a blog hosted on your server (not a service like Blogger or Tumblr) comes in handy. Keep this website fresh and up-to-date.

An in-demand speaker often offers three things to their ideal target market:

• Products: books, CDs, video, special reports, etc.
• Services: coaching, consulting, speaking, etc.
• Information: both free and as part of their products

You want a clearly identifiable platform that is supported by these three things. When visitors see your marketing, they should be clear on what it is you do and what your message is.

You’re waiting your turn to make a speech, when suddenly you realize that your stomach is doing strange things and your mind is rapidly going blank. How do you handle this critical time period?

In all of my speaking classes, students ask me how to handle public speaking nervousness, fears, jitters, anxieties – and the physical symptoms these feelings produce. There is no single answer; you must prepare by anticipating your speech mentally, logistically, and physically.

Mentally
Start by understanding that you’ll spend a lot more time preparing than you will speaking. As a general rule, invest three hours of preparation for a half hour speech, a six to one ratio. When you’ve become a highly experienced speaker, you may be able to cut preparation time considerably in some cases, but until then, don’t skimp.

Part of your preparation will be to memorize your opening and closing — three or four sentences each. Even if you cover your key points from notes, knowing your opening and closing by heart lets you start and end fluently, connecting with your audience when you are most nervous.

Logistically
Go to the room where you’ll be speaking as early as possible so you can get comfortable in the environment. If you will be speaking from a stage, go early in the morning when no one is there and make friends with the stage. Then, during your presentation, you can concentrate on your audience, not your environment.

Physically
A wonderful preparation technique for small meetings is to go around shaking hands and making eye contact with everybody beforehand. For larger meetings, meet and shake hands with people in the front row at least, and some of the people as they are coming in the door. Connect with them personally, so they’ll be rooting for your success. We as speakers are rarely nervous about individuals, only when faced with the thought of an audience. Once you’ve met the audience or at least some of them, they become less scary.

It’s totally natural to be nervous. Try this acting technique. Find a private spot, and wave your hands in the air. Relax your jaw, and shake your head from side to side. Then shake your legs one at a time. Physically shake the tension out of your body.

Try not to sit down too much while you’re waiting to speak. If you’re scheduled to go one an hour into the program, try to sit in the back of the room so that you can stand up occasionally. It is hard to jump up and be dynamic when you’ve been relaxed in a chair for hour. (Comedian Robin Williams is well known for doing “jumping jacks” before going on stage to raise his energy level.) Sitting in the back also gives you easy access to the bathroom and drinking fountain. There’s nothing worse than being stuck down front and being distracted by urgent bodily sensations.

Patricia Fripp is an award-winning speaker, sales trainer, and executive speech coach who delights audiences, electrifies executives who speak, and transforms sales teams. Meetings and Conventions magazine calls Patricia “one of the country’s 10 most electrifying speakers.” For more information on her speaking schools; executive speech coaching; books, CDs, and DVDs visit: www.fripp.com or contact Patricia: 1-800-634-3035 PFripp@Fripp.com.

Patricia Fripp offers this article on a nonexclusive basis. You may reprint or repost this material as long as Patricia Fripp’s name and contact information is included. PFripp@Fripp.com, 1-800-634-3035, http://www.fripp.com

Recently I had the opportunity to hear an international speaker address a large group of women. The women’s ages ranged from their 20′s to their 60′s. While the speaker used the F-word once, the silence in the large ballroom was much more apparent when he then used a 4-letter word that begins with ‘d.’ And he was not referring to a duck!

The use of questionable language when addressing an audience is not in good taste and is offensive. In case you were unaware of this little tidbit, the 4-letter word that begins with a ‘d’ may be considered slang but, according to the dictionary, it is a vulgar term. Vulgar language is “lacking in cultivation, perception, or taste.” It is also coarse and morally crude.

I can appreciate that there is a generation of young people who may not be offended with ‘colorful’ language; however, if you are addressing an audience of mixed ages, it is to your benefit to avoid certain words that the majority of people still consider indecent. This is why knowing your audience in advance is paramount to your success.

Back in April of 2009, a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court, “upheld the government’s crackdown on ‘fleeting expletives’ and said broadcasters could face heavy fines for airing the F-word or the S-word even once during prime time.” They considered this ruling to “offer families a ‘safe haven’ from foul language.”

How do you know which words are acceptable and which are not? If you are addressing a mixed or all-female audience, or if you have been invited to speak to a business, corporation, non-profit organization, or a place of worship, the following rule should apply.

• If it cannot be printed in a national newspaper; i.e. The New York Times, then do not use it in public speaking.

Another way to look at this situation is to consider the following:

• If it is a word that you would not use in front of your mother, then it is unacceptable.

[If your parents are 'baby-boomers,' then it is possible that you do speak in vulgar terms in front of them. If such is the case, stick to the above rule dealing with a national newspaper.]

Remember, no one will be offended if you do not swear; however, some will be offended if you do. Public speaking is a tough business and becoming successful at it is difficult. Don’t jeopardize your success because of vulgar or indecent language.

The Voice Lady Nancy Daniels offers private, corporate and group workshops in voice and presentation skills as well as Voicing It!, the only video training program on voice improvement. For more information on upcoming workshops, visit Nancy’s Voice Training Workshops.

• Your name
• Your business’ name
• Your headshot
• A short introduction – This is about five sentences that summarizes and introduces the body of your work, as it relates to what you are promoting or marketing
• Presentation topics — List two different topics that related to you topic of expertise and then elaborate on those topics with a 2- to 3-sentence description. Use bullet points to emphasize main points of each presentation
• Target audience – Who is your presentation tailored to? List demographics, gender, career, etc.
• Short biography – This is a one-paragraph bio that includes your most pertinent and basic information
• Testimonials – Include 4 to 5 testimonials or endorsements

If you speak on different topics that don’t relate to each other well, you might want to have more than one targeted speaker sheet. For example, you could create one sheets for different types of audiences you serve.

We all want to improve public speaking skills, don’t we? Toastmasters is fantastic for having a group of peers support one another as everyone works on their skills. But sometimes, there isn’t a toastmaster’s club chapter near you, or the timing of meetings doesn’t suit your work or personal schedule.

So what do you do? Videotape yourself! And then create a simple standardized scoring tool to assess yourself consistently. I’d also suggest getting a trusted friend or family member assess your video with the same scoring tool.

Below are directions for creating your own scoring tool that I regularly distribute to clients that helps them improve public speaking skills when they’re practicing largely on their own. When doing this, it’s important to remain as objective and consistent in your self-scoring as possible.

This is the kind of tool teachers create when faced with 150 projects or term papers to grade in a day or two. It sure beats throwing the stack of papers down the stairs and giving an A to whichever ones make it to the bottom!

The difference between this scoring tool and others commonly used for public speaking is that the values of the different levels are clarified. Usually, scoring tools ask you to rate yourself as “excellent,” “satisfactory,” or “unsatisfactory.” This leaves the definitions of those terms to be decided by any listener’s own subjective opinions.

Here you go:

Scoring Tool Template
Create a chart with two axes. On the vertical axis list your public speaking goals. On the horizontal axis, number and clearly define the levels of accomplishment you’d like to reach.

Goals:
First, make a list of your specific goals as a public speaker. This list will be points on your vertical axis. Examples could include using more body language, staying within your time limit, having three clear main points, consistent voice projection, and so on. As you use your scoring tool, edit your goal list to the 5 most important goals, and leave the others for later.

Examples of goals:

• I used body language throughout the presentation to be more expressive. I didn’t stand stiffly or look robotic at all.
• I stayed within the given time limit for my presentation.
• My presentation has three clear points that my audience can easily understand.
• I projected my voice throughout the presentation; I was easily heard.

Levels of Accomplishment:
Here, define several levels of accomplishment for your horizontal axis, with a numerical score attached to each. Somewhere on your scoring tool, write a clear definition of what level or performance each number represents. Create a chart with two axes: on the vertical axis list goals, and on horizontal axis define and rate several levels of accomplishment, for example, rated from 1-4.

Example:

• Score of 1- I only achieved 25% of my goal.
• Score of 2- I’m hitting the 50% mark of my goal.
• Score of 3- I’m doing well at 75% of my goal!
• Score of 4- I’m hitting it out of the ball park at 100%!

To see a sample of a completed scoring tool chart, please visit fearlessdelivery.com/improve-public-speaking-simple-tool

Lily Iatridis of Fearless Delivery, has a proven track record and knows the key elements in effective and engaging presentation. Her expertise is in supporting professionals to get their message expressed clearly to deliver the biggest results in their live and online presentations. Secrets and strategies such as “how-to” shortcuts, personalized instruction and even packaging the presentation are just some of the skill sets that Lily brings to her audience to create a fearless and effective delivery.

If you’ve ever been nervous in front of an audience, please download Lily’s free ebook, “5 Steps to Neutralize Difficult Audience Members- Without A Power Struggle!” In this ebook, Lily shares simple strategies that will put your mind at ease, arm you with useful strategies, and entertain you with some stories of her own bumps along the path to public speaking success. Please visit www.FearlessDelivery.com.