Steel

Cat Got Your Thumb?

By Jay Speyerer

Open your faux pas file and use the stories as examples to make your points.

I was holding this cat, see, and trying to protect it from a dog. The cat panicked and bit my thumb. Go figure.

My friend Maureen has two cats and a big, gallumphing coon hound named Quigley, who adores me. Quigley couldn't love me more if I were a combination of Lassie, the Dog Whisperer, and the inventor of Gravy Train. But he and the cats don’t get along, and that’s why he spends most of his time on the first floor of the house, and the cats live on the second. I was visiting one evening and went upstairs to say hi to one of the cats, Stitch.

Quigley stood watch at the bottom of the steps. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the smartest move I ever made to let Quigley see me holding Stitch.

The ensuing events blur because of how quickly they happened, but in a nutshell…

Quigley races up the steps, Maureen behind him.

I hold
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How to Connect with Your Audience

By Al Borowski

The rapport you build with your audience determines the ultimate success of your presentation.

Your high-tech, high-content presentation becomes memorable and valued when you include a high-touch component that connects you to your audience.

The following techniques offer you relatively easy ways to help build that rapport.

Say Yes

The first rapport builder relies on one word that should become part of every speaker's vocabulary: "yes."

For example, if someone in your audience says to you, "Thank you for those insights. I can use them at work and in my personal life. I know I can apply this in my relationships with my spouse and my children."

The next word you say should be, "yes." As in, "Yes, I think you've hit upon something there."

Positive affirmations not only verify the importance of your message, but they also bring practical application to other members of the audience. Remember the E. F. Hutton commercia
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Use Passion and Stories to Persuade!

By Maureen Murray

In order to persuade our listeners to consider new concepts, embrace new material or lower resistance to change, we must touch both their minds and hearts. The “mind connection” is essentially straightforward, and results from providing interesting and relevant content. If your material is organized and delivered well, the mind will engage and learning will occur. However, if you want motivation to rise or change to happen, you must build “heart connections” into your presentation.

Expert speakers build this bridge to their audiences in many ways. For starters, here are two valuable tools for making persuasive connections that will have enduring impact on your listeners: PS—Passion and Stories.

Raise Your Energy!
Passion. You’ve heard it before because it’s true: your passion for your topic must be evident to your listeners. Whether you’re speaking to an audience, workplace team,
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To Do or Not To Do ... That is the Ethical Question

By Patty Kreamer

Did you ever get stuck making a decision about something that just didn’t feel right? If so, you are not alone. Life is nothing but a long series of choices—some are no-brainers, but others may not be as black and white as we would like. This is where a great deal of intense decision-making is required.

So what’s so hard about that? Well, another ingredient you need when making decisions is a healthy dose of knowing the difference between right and wrong. That is where the problem lies.

Ethical behavior revolves around making smart, gut-based decisions – to do or not to do…that is the ethical question.

The National Speakers Association has a Code of Professional Ethics by which its members must abide. I think it would be helpful to look at each article of this code and break down its meaning in layman’s terms. So here goes.

Article 1: The NSA member shall accurately represent qualifications and experience in b
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Everyday Eloquence

By Jay Speyerer

Mark Twain said, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is like the difference between the lightning bug and lightning.” But that lightning can come in a bottle; eloquence can be a small thing.

World War II. Bastogne, France, in December of 1944. The Germans demanded that U.S. Army General Anthony McAuliffe surrender his surrounded division at the Battle of the Bulge. The general's defiant reply: “Nuts!”

Multiple Choices
It has been said that oratory is the art of making deep noises from the chest sound like important messages from the brain. Many of us equate eloquence with Elmer Gantry style intensity and hyperbolic, sesquipedalian verbosity. Maybe it's because of the inventory available to us. Consider this: the French language has fewer than 100,000 words. German has around 185,000. In contrast, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists about 500,000 words. We have h
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Persuasive Communicators Resemble Trial Lawyers

By Bonnie Budzowski

Successful speaker and sales trainer, Terri Sjodin, describes how she floundered in a commission sales job as a young woman fresh out of college. On a particularly low day, Sjodin visited her college debate teacher. The teacher convinced Sjodin to listen to an audiotape of her sales presentation—with the ears of a debater.

The tape revolutionized Sjodin's career. She realized she had focused on informing and educating her prospects when she should have focused on persuading them.

Sjodin revised her presentation to reflect the principles of debate—the same ones used by trial lawyers. She began to experience success as a salesperson and as a presenter. By age 34, Sjodin became one of the youngest women ever to earn the designation of CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) by the National Speakers Association. Later, Sjodin's book, New Sales Speak (John Wiley & Sons), hit #74 on Amazon's Top 100 Bestseller List.

Sjodin's learned t
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Team Up for Success

By Sam Wieder, MBA

Have you ever heard of anyone climbing a mountain alone? This may be possible, depending on the size of the mountain and the skill of the climber. However, mountain climbers generally work in teams—and for good reason. It's simply too hard to climb a mountain without a support team to help you overcome the challenges you're sure to encounter on the way to the top.

Building a speaking business can be the same way. Those who try to do it all by themselves soon discover that this is no easy task. There are some steep slopes to scale in becoming a successful professional speaker. Along the way, you may lose sight of the summit or stray off course. When the slopes get too slippery and your energy starts to fade, you may even begin to question if you have what it takes to keep going.

It doesn't have to be that way. You can eliminate much of the struggle if you are simply willing to seek out the help and support that you need.

One powerful way to gain n
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