Reaching your objective

Before you start planning or writing a speech, you must decide on the objective that you want to reach. What do you want your audience to do after you walk away? Do you want your audience to act differently, think differently or sign up for a volunteer activity?

I recently gave a speech - actually I lead the team that created a joint presentation to be more accurate. As VP of membership for SNEC-PMI one of my tasks is to call for more volunteers to step forward and run the chapter.

The benefits of volunteering include networking opportunities and professional development. In the past calls for volunteers have fallen on deaf ears.

I insisted that we first clearly define the objective for this presentation before crafting it. The resulting objective was "Have members of the audience sign up for volunteer roles".

Working towards this objective, I created the PowerPoint slides and crafted the presentation using the Pow'Rful Process defined in "Dodging the bullet points".

Although this process always results in admirable speeches, I took additional steps. I contacted volunteers who have already benefited from the volunteer efforts before the meeting, and asked them to give live testimonials during the presentation.

The flow of my presentation was:

Firstly, I explained the benefits available to members who belong to the chapter.
Secondly, I listed the benefits of volunteering.
Thirdly, I asked the identified volunteers to share their experiences, how much time volunteering takes and what benefits they have received. The volunteers said that they were able to secure better jobs because of their volunteer work. Finally, I closed the presentation by telling the audience who to see in order to sign up.

Needless to say, we had record numbers of volunteers sign up after this presentation.

Use these lessons in your next presentation, if you want audiences to sign up for a project.
1. Define the objective of your presentation clearly.
2. Don't hog the stage. Contact a few audience members before the meeting and ask them to help you with the presentation. This connects with the audience.
3. Get multiple testimonials from people who have benefited from what you are asking your audience to do. Live testimonials are the best way to encourage audience members to understand that they will benefit by volunteering.
4. Tell the audience where to sign up. Make it easy for them to sign up on the spot.
5. Enjoy the accolades as you hear of the record-setting results of your presentation.

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How to improve a prepared speech

This week, I will speak at a Rotary club on behalf of one of the charities that I support. This charity provided me with a standard speech to read for the occasion, detailing what the charity does and how the audience can support this charity.

The problem is that the standard speech was not written by a Toastmaster nor a speaker. It reads like a financial report. I tested the speech at one of my Toastmaster clubs and everyone gave the same feedback. Way too much detail, too many statistics and complex words. This script was written for the eye, and not for the ear.

There are differences between writing for the eye and writing for the ear. You can use long and complex sentences when your reader can go back and read the piece again. Your audience only listens to your speech once so you need to use clear words and illustrate concepts with multiple stories and examples. How often have you listened to a speech and been distracted for a moment while a cell-phone rings? If the speaker only mentioned a point once at the very moment that you were distracted, then you have no opportunity to hear that point again. If you are distracted while reading a book, then you simply go back and read the section again.

If you are ever in this situation, then here are the tips to follow as you take a script that is written for the eye, and convert it to writing for the ear.
1. Read the script out loud, to get familiar with it.
2. Record the script into a recorder and play it back to see what stands out at you.
3. Identify the key points of the script. Take note of the best and worst sections of the script. Also get input from your Toastmasters club.
4. Write a new speech, using the key points that you identified. Leave out the worst sections of the previous script. Play up the most important point - repeat it during your speech and illustrate it with multiple stories and examples.
5. Rehearse your new speech 10 times.
6. Go and present it to your audience in support of your favorite charity.

Your audience will be glad that you took the time and applied your presentation skills to convert an statistically correct script into a pleasant and informative speech.

Parenting Children with ADHD

I read "Parenting children with ADHD" by Vincent Monastra last night. I am very impressed with the down-to-earth language and clear ideas that he presents in this book. I am not a medical professional and often get lost in the first paragraph of medical descriptions of ADD, ADHD and Learning Disabilities.

After struggling with a local school system's ignorance and unwillingness to question archaic teaching methods, I appreciate the way that Vincent compares ADHD to other medical impairments.

If a child has a visual impairment, and needs accommodations in the classroom, would you expect a school administrator or teacher to say any of the following?
1. The parents need to go for parent training - the social worker will call you to schedule an appointment.
2. By the end of 5th grade, this child needs to be able to take down notes from the board and must learn to function at the same level as peers, irrespective of the impairment. (Substitute your own "must" here. "Must be able to sit still in class" or "Must be able to write five paragraph essays".)
3. The child just needs to try harder.
4. The impairment will go away as we promote the child through the grades without addressing the situation.

No parent should tolerate these comments if a child has a visual impairment or hearing impairment (although I expect that some school administrators that I have met will offer these comments).

Similarly, a child with ADHD or any other impairment should be accommodated. Vincent does a good job of comparing ADHD to other visual and hearing impairments which gives parent another tool to educate people who are not familiar with the current research on ADHD.

I advise parents who engage the school system for accommodations should start off by getting a child advocate. I will give you the name of a great child advocate in Connecticut, if you ask me. I suggest that you do not try to negotiate with your school district without a child advocate. Your school district has a different agenda to yours, so be warned.

Vincent also does a good job of describing current medication. How it works, the percentage of time that it doesn't work and similar details. I found it very enlightening and helpful.

I recommend this book to all parents who are raising kids with ADHD, ADD or a Learning Disability, especially if you are considering medication.

Take every opportunity to laugh

Life is tough. Slow traffic, struggling to get the homework completed and getting stuck behind a certified coupon clipper at the supermarket is enough to sour Dr. Peale's best attempts at PMA.

We do not get many opportunities to laugh out loud. Keep a watchful eye and embrace every opportunity. Laugh out loud whenever you can. Lead the people in your company with a good laugh when something funny happens. Lower your stress and the stress of others. This is your civil duty.

If all else fails, then lower your standards

Sometimes we are just trying to reach perfection out of habit. Sometimes the situation at hand does not require perfection. In fact, sometimes adequacy is adequate and perfection is a waste of good money and your time.

If you are struggling to reach perfection or accomplish a task to your satisfaction, then consider lowering your standards. Will it really matter if every nail in the deck is not straight? Does anyone care if you have a typo in your blog posting? Does it really matter if you missed one Toastmasters meeting this month?

The final 20% of any project is likely to be dysfunctional, so don’t invest precious moments of your life in seeking perfection. If all else fails when you are striving for an elusive objective, then get real, and lower your standards.

Thanksgiving in the USA

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving holiday in the USA. We have four days to rest and enjoy time with our families.

As immigrants to the USA, we are especially thankful to be living our dreams. Perhaps more thankful than the pilgrims who faced incredible challenges in their new land in the 1600's.

Take time to be thankful for what you have around you and where you are, over this weekend.

How to get paid more

In these tough economic times you may need to reassess some concepts that you have taken for granted in the past. Many people are looking for ways to earn more money. If you want to earn more money, then read on. Have you analyzed why you get paid what you get paid now? Do you know how to get paid more?

Here is the simple formula which will get you paid more. Read this carefully and take the time to digest it.

You get paid for applying your expertise to help other people solve their problems.

This formula has three variables. Changing these variables increases your result.

You have control over these variables.
1. The amount of expertise that you acquire and possess.
2. The way and effectiveness of the application of your knowledge.
3. The number of people that you help with your knowledge.

The more you increase these three variables, which are under your control, the more you can expect for your services.

Here is further explanation.
1. Become "The Expert" in your field by reading appropriate books, attending seminars and academic qualifications.
2. Find more effective methods to apply your expertise. Contemplate your current methods of getting your expertise to your customers and clients. How can you apply your expertise more effectively? Can you write a newsletter? Can you create audio CD products? How can Internet marketing help you to be more effective?
3. Increase the number of people that you are reaching to benefit from your expertise. Can you provide groups of people access to your expertise instead of single persons at a time?

Increasing these three variables is the key to you earning more money.

Coin Collecting Merit Badge

WOOHOOO!! My son got his first scout merit badge this week, with Troop 880 in South Windsor.

Many thanks go to the volunteers of this marvelous troop who keep the scouts entertained while training them to be fine young men.

Privilege of evaluations

This week I had the privilege of giving feedback to a fellow Toastmaster in his CL manual for his performance as Speech Evaluator.

This Toastmaster is putting in the effort and is striding towards becoming an advanced communicator. It was really hard for me to find areas of improvement in his performance.

I wanted to provide good feedback as my contribution to this great speaker. I admire his efforts and progress. I was able to offer only a single contribution for improvement.

It is hard to find areas of improvement for good speakers. And this is exactly the value that we each bring to Toastmasters - putting in the mental effort to think, think, and think of ways that good speakers can improve.

I was very tempted to just say "You can't improve - the speech was perfect". I often hear this in speech evaluations, which is simply not acceptable. You can always find something to suggest a speaker change in a speech performance. The speaker may not have thought of your suggestion, and it may spark off other ideas for the club.

The next time you are given the privilege of doing an evaluation, then make your contribution back to Toastmasters. You receive so much from the Toastmasters program, the one way that you can give back is through thoughtful evaluations. Good speakers especially need you to make the effort and find one thing that can be improved. Don't let yourself and your club down. Take the privilege of your evaluation seriously.

The basics are the basics for a reason

Sometimes we are tempted to overlook the basics. How many times do you see a driver speed through an amber light, forgetting that amber lights are intended to warn you to stop before the light turns red?

The basics are the basics for a reason. The basic rule is that we should stop on amber lights, if given enough warning.

Similarly, as presenters, we know that we should always rehearse our presentations and always test our equipment if we will be using technology. Don't be fooled into thinking that your projector and laptop will automagically function as expected, unless you have tested them.

I am preparing for a presentation today at the November chapter meeting of SNEC-PMI. I tested my slideshow through my projector and lo-and-behold, it did not work. I have given presentations in the past with this laptop and projector, so what could have changed?

Puzzled at first I soon realized that I replaced my laptop a few weeks ago. The new one looks the same as my old one and I forgot that I had not tested this combination yet. Thank goodness for rehearsals. My new laptop has different function keys when connecting to a projector and so I saved my audience the embarrassment of learning the new function keys from the platform.

Don't be fooled. The basics are called the basics for a reason. Go ahead and rehearse your presentation using the actual equipment that you will be using for your presentation.

Parents earning merit badges

This week I accompanied my son to earn his Coin Collecting Merit badge at Scouts. My wife and I supported him in this. (In fact, we put in significant effort).

I thought we were the only parents who supported their scouts to this extent. Well, it turns out that the other parents also support their scouts. To the casual eye, it may even look like the parents are earning the merit badges and the scouts are incidental in the process.

Mothers and fathers were coming over to the scout leader asking "Did Johnny pass his merit badge? Are there any other requirements?" Little Johnny was off playing tag while mom or pop were studying up on the requirements for a merit badge.

These are the joys of parenting a scout. And I love every minute of it. You should also enjoy your children and loved ones because we pass this way but once.

Strategic reading to increase your expertise

I firmly believe that we get paid in direct proportion to the amount of expertise that we apply to help other people solve their problems.

The more expertise we have, the more we can help people, thus increase our value and income.

Specifically, as presenters, the more we learn and increase our presentation skills and expertise, the better we can communicate our message to better serves our audience.

Therefore, we all need to continually study and increase our expertise. One way to drastically increase your expertise is to strategically select and study commercially books. For under $20 you can study the results of years of an author's experience.

Purchasing a good book is the best investment you can make. I recall when I purchased Think and Grow Rich, I had to take my lunch money that day to purchase the book. My copy of Think and Grow Rich allowed me to live my dream life in the USA and influence my family for generations to come. Not bad for a single missed lunch 15 years ago!!

I urge you to always be looking for skills you would like to acquire, and then strategically select five or more books on this topic for your reading list. Skip an hour of TV and read a book that will improve your expertise from an expert in the field for the rest of your life and watch your income increase. You have my word on this. Don't just read whatever comes your way in the form of newspapers and tabloids - seek out material that helps you and your audiences.

This week I am re-reading Money Talks by Alan Weiss. Every time I re-read Alan's books, I understand more than the previous time - which is just one indicator of an outstanding author.

I want to highlight this point for you, as a presenter. Alan states that we are not on stage to deliver a speech. We are on stage to meet an objective and work towards an outcome.

Think about this in your next presentation. Establish the outcome before you start to develop your speech. What is the desired outcome of your presentation? Then build your presentation around this desired outcome.

And always, continue increasing and improving your expertise by strategically selecting the books for your reading pile. Keep a book with you and in your car. You never know when you will be waiting in a Doctor's room, having a car serviced, or waiting for UFOs to land, and the fifteen minutes invested in your education will provide better dividends than filling out last week's crossword puzzle.

Customer Disservice

I was down at the local T-Mobile store this week, looking for a phone with a full keyboard, to send text messages easily. After waiting for a customer rep to finish up with her boyfriend, she shouted that we should cross the store and approach her desk.

At her desk, while chewing bubble-gum and listening to music she "served" us. Each bubble popping in my face increased my dissatisfaction. Finally, she understood what we were looking for and showed us three models of phones that suit our needs. All three are ridiculously priced and I went to the Verizon store where I was treated like a paying customers. Very much appreciated, thank you.

I called T-Mobile to terminate my account, and the customer rep told me "I see that you have been a valued customer since since 2001, and we don't want to lose you. The termination fee will be $200 per line". "What? Are you telling me that it is $200 per line, for each of the phones, which both have various malfunctions and are now out of warranty?" "Yes".

Before these incidents, I was considering switching all of my phones to Verizon. Now after being insulted in person and on the phone, it is good bye, and good riddance to T-Mobile in my household.

As a presenter, this is good material for my speeches. I can make a few points with this story. Firstly, the customer rep blowing bubble gum in my face is probably clueless about the impact of her actions. (The store manager is probably also clueless, if he was even in the store). As speakers we can also have distracting and irritating habits that we are not aware of until someone points them out to us. Which brings me to the suggestion that you should record some of your presentations with a video recorder to see what you actually do on stage. A video recording of this customer rep would hopefully suck the wind right out of her next bubble.

A second, and obvious point to make, is that customers don't need to tolerate poor service. If your service is bad, then the customer goes elsewhere. Sometimes without you even having the opportunity to discuss or correct the situation.

Treat your audiences with respect and remember that we earn the right to the "Privilege of the Platform". Come prepared to your speech and do everything that you can to deliver a good performance for the audience.

Tolerations. Stop them.

I am reading "The Portable Coach" by Thomas J. Leonard. Very interesting material. I got interested in the benefits of personal coaching since my coach asked if I would accept coaching while he completes his training and works on his certification. My interest in coaching led me to research personal coaching, which led me to purchasing a copy of "The Portable Coach".

One of the many lessons in this book, that I want to pass on, is to stop tolerating things in your life that suck up your energy. What are you tolerating today that is taking up energy? Is your desk a mess? Then invest some time and clean it, to remove the toleration and give yourself more energy.

Does you car need repairs? Is there something small broken around the house that you tolerate, but should just have repaired? If so, then there is no time like the present. Give yourself an energy boost and remove some of things that you are unhappy with in life and are currently tolerating. Stop tolerating them to improve your life.

Innovative time tips when you don't have a designated timer

Do you lose track of time when you are presenting? Every presenter is subject to going overtime and getting off schedule. Going over time is an occupational hazard of public speaking, but you have no excuse for going over time.

I have seen experienced speakers, including Distinguished Toastmasters completely ignore all timing signals and blissfully sail way over the allotted time for a presentation. The best way to keep on time, is to find a reliable audience member to give you signals as listed on your Speech Timeline Tool.

In addition, I have found these techniques helpful to stay on time. Feel free to use any or all of these proven techniques to benefit your audience.

Firstly, you can put a clock on the lectern. Keep it in your pocket as you go forward to speak and then put the clock on the lectern out of sight of your audience.

Analog clocks are easier to read as you can see the hands on the clock with just a glance. I find that digital clocks are harder to analyze and instantly realize how much time I have left for the presentation.

Secondly, look around the room when you enter it. Are there clocks on the walls of the meeting room that you can glance at to keep your presentation on time? Free bonus hint. If you see a clock on the wall, make sure that it is functioning and accurate (Don't ask me how I came to learn this tip).

Finally, have your audience help you stay on track. Tell your audience that you will handout a prize for the person who interrupts you at 5 minutes and 32 minutes of your 40 minute presentation. Then, everyone in the audience will be watching the time and at 5 minutes you hand out a prize when the person interrupts you. You can be sure that this will train the audience to make sure you will know when you reach 32 minutes, and you can start to wrap - up your presentation.

You have no excuse for going over your allotted time in your presentation. Be creative and find ways to stay aware of the time.

You can read more innovative presentation tips in my monthly newsletters, and subscribe to get it delivered each month, for free.