A 10 minute video tutorial on persuasive speaking, laughter, & yoga too…
After sifting through LiveYourTalk’s video archives, I edited one of my workshops into a shorter version. It’s based on a 4-prong approach to preparing persuasive presentations, plus tips for using more vocal flexibility and understanding the impact of silence.
Are you attending Blogworld this year? If so, by golly join us!
It will be a highly fun, highly interactive session and inspire results for any woman wanting to take the stage.
And wait – there’s more!
Think fun, prizes, and learning to:
Identify your strengths as a public speaker and how to articulate your expertise;
Learn how to craft a strong speaker proposal;
Strengthen your public speaking skills in a fun, supportive, and feedback-rich environment.
Then the second half combines the chance for attendees to practice their pitch in a fun American Idol-esque environment. For this part of the workshop, we’ll invite participants to pitch to the audience for a few minutes — then receive motivating feedback and ideas to take your proposal to its next level of success.
Going to BlogworldLA?
Then I (Aliza too) welcome you big time to this workshop.
And whether or not you’re going to Blogworld…
Have a great week….and in the spirit of our workshop, ’speak up’ and exercise your voice for the greater good wherever you may be.
What a great experience!
A long time goal has been to speak at Ignite, specifically the unique community for IgniteDC. This short-form style is a blast; the DC crowd is supportive and energetic. And I’ve enjoyed coaching clients on this format with my business sponsoring local events.
Ignite is flat out fun.
Have you ever participated in an Ignite event?
Ignite’s mantra is: “Enlighten us but make it quick.”
It’s a vibrant public speaking event with many venues across the globe. Sixteen speakers get to present at each — all giving a talk within the same format: 5 minutes about any topic using 20 slides. And the kicker: each slide automatically advances after 15 seconds.
Do you have favorite tips for preparing short-form presentation like Ignite?
Here’s an approach I often rely on:
TIP #1: focus on your spoken content first and the slides last.
Why? to avoid ‘conjunction-caption speak.’
Focusing on the spoken content first helps to establish a cohesive structure and arc for the talk.
What is your core message or messages?
How does one idea transition and support the next?
Where does the audience end up?
It addresses all those questions.
And it avoids an unintended problem many Ignite speakers have described when they focused on making their slides first: they ended up giving an Ignite talk that is a set of conjunction-caption-like phrases that come across as run-on sentences (vs a cohesive storytelling experience for their audience).
Fuzzy bunnies: an example of the unintended conjunction-caption-sounding result when speakers focus on preparing slides first (vs focusing on a story-centric whole):
“Fuzzy bunnies are happy and cute, see aren’t they cute? and fluffy and they bounce and then they eat a lot and I wish they could fly and drive space ships and they make great cartoons too.”
Have you heard a presentation that sounded this way?
Fuzzy bunnies with context:
Or here’s an example of focusing on the spoken content first and giving the audience a specific point of view (and then crafting slides after the fact to support your spoken content):
“Fuzzy bunnies are a great greeting card icon for 3 main reasons: they evoke sweetness; they’re fun; and they are innocently playful too which makes them ideal images to help celebrate children’s events.”
I’m having some goofy fun here with the bunnies, but the point:
Focusing on your spoken-word content first creates a clearer way for your audience to relate to your ideas.
TIP #2: Knowing the word count for a 5 minute talk.
I focused on a draft that was app. 640 words in length for a five minute talk.
After timing it, I divided app. 31 words to each slide and crafted the slide deck based on that.
Factoring in a reasonable speaking rate and pauses to give the audience a few seconds to absorb along the way — a 640 word draft worked.
Footnote:
Certainly speaking rates vary for all of us!
You may comfortably articulate at a swifter rate and speak closer to a 150 word per minute rate. But after testing and timing some of my past speeches, this is a comfortable rate on my end – with time for pauses factored in.
It served as a really useful framework for the spoken-word draft.
Speech history really fascinates me so I chose (3) speeches to share about and then wrote, edited!, and re-wrote.
Ignite invites a wide range of passions — philosophy, tech, education and how-to, and personal experience.
What’s topic drives you the most?
TIP #3: Rehearsing each section with a recorded audio device.
This really helped to understand and maintain timing along the way (and ensure the right messages and images were on the screen as desired). For rehearsals, I timed without slides first — via audio a few times to ensure the 5 minutes (or 4:55 for a buffer window). Then after making the slides, I timed a few sections via audio again to see if a particular section was overly delayed and needed editing.
What do you think? Is it time to dive into your next Ignite talk?! What other tips do you have for prep?
Sometimes breaking down a huge problem to solve can be daunting, especially if potential ideas to fix it are left unsaid. When everything stays swirling up in the brain – vs discussed out loud – I find a clear roadmap to a solution can be a tough, obscure process. You know that type of mental crossroads?
But Lauren Meling spoke her mind and shared a small story with big impact. It surprised her.
She’s online marketing manager at USA for UNHCR.
She was recently, pleasantly surprised about what small steps could be taken to make large degrees of impact in helping Thailand refugees. The Blue Key campaign helps to bring this awareness and resources to refugees worldwide; being involved with this program continues to educate me in unexpected ways.
Her encouragement, and what she observed directly in Thailand, unfolds in this brief conversation (video = 2 minutes).
Lauren along with her team ‘live their talk.’
Not to be too cheesy but Lauren confronts tough work and seeks to absolve dangerous situations facing refugees around the globe. Her ability to share this story out-loud-and-head-on made an imprint on my thinking.
Here’s an audio snapshot just below about presenting at Blogworld (or a written summary follows soon after on Blogworld reflections and questions about speaking in public):
‘A’ Game as public speakers (and you?)
There’s a big adrenaline rush on this end of the webz to head out to NYC for the Blogworld East New Media Expo. I’m thrilled to co-facilitate a workshop this year about empowering women to bring their ‘A’ game as public speakers with the motivating and motivated Aliza Sherman.
We’ll approach the session from a few angles:
how to develop speaker proposals and submit on a regular basis to conference selection committees (plus some coping mechanisms for those icky rejection notices);
how to enact a practice plan to strengthen as a speaker (and specifically practice your key message and assert public conversations long before it’s time to officially engage an audience from the stage).
At Blogworld Expo East this week? Here’s an invitation for you!
Have a super time at Blogworld and know you have a hearty invitation to join us Thur, May 26th at 9am for our session officially called: Speak Up – empowering women to find their voice. Our session’s specific hashtag is: #BWEvoice
Your favorite tips and strengths as a speaker: would you share?
What favorite tips do you practice in preparing for a speech — when organizing content or delivery or any aspect of stage preparation?
And what are your favorite attributes as a presenter? As in, do you love the sound of your voice or vocal range? Do you get an addictive kick out of storytelling and make an audience feel at ease? Are you a maestro at creating media decks or stimulating a sense of momentum in your narrative?
DISCLAIMER to readers: Darth Vader was not harmed in this recording.
She just gave a great speech on the benefits and stress from having so many available choices.
She has resolve, success, and a great depth of reflection.
She’s got one heck of a sense of humor, is a Women Grow Business blogger — and she’s a clear winner too.
This ’she’ is Ann Bevans, a business owner and prize winner of this year’s case study competition for the Hot Mommas Project.
The Hot Mommas Project is an online mentorship library for women and girls, comprised of case studies accessible for free. People from across the globe submit case studies reflecting their life experience about entrepreneurship and different professional industries.
What challenges did they face?
What decisions or fears or obstacles helped to crystalize their success?
These questions are often framed and answered in the most personal and triumphant ways in these case studies.
Ann’s case study won top honors this year, revealing her sense of purpose for her business and resolve to look at specific choices.
In this video talk: Darth Vader talks shop.
And Ann shares more on what compelled her to write her case study. Her potent acceptance speech was a hot topic too, looking at the trials of choice in & beyond business — all this from the Hot Momma’s Awards Ceremony earlier this week.
It was a fantastic evening last night where I presented on favorite tips and mindsets for preparing persuasive speeches. This was my first time to present to a great membership forum here in Washington, DC — the Fabulous Women Biz Owners founded by Sarah Massey.
This was such a rejuvenating night — great, tenacious folks.
Here’s 13 minutes from my talk that includes:
a 4-prong approach to preparing persuasive presentations plus using vocal flexibility and understanding the impact of silence.
I co-hosted the workshop with the fantastic Jessica Solomon, founder of Spark Creativity. She led a segment on creating an authentic elevator pitch (or what she calls ‘cocktail line’) with some really reflective, thought provoking recommendations.
Sometimes breaking down a huge problem to solve can be daunting, especially if potential ideas to fix it are left unsaid. When everything stays swirling up in the brain – vs discussed out loud – I find a clear roadmap to a solution can be a tough, obscure process. You know that type of mental crossroads?
