CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – AUGUST 29, 2021
A Few Public Speaking Tips to Add Showmanship
Use Posters Instead of Pictures
Adding a picture, or multiple pictures, to a PowerPoint slide can be effective in a pinch. However, you can go to printing stores and get a picture blown up into a poster that you can set on a tripod, and the poster will be much more memorable. Think of a trade show. The exhibits that have big posters are more eye-catching and attention-getting.
Add Some Magic
Quick and easy magic tricks can add some fun and energy to a presentation if it is appropriate. Since our instructors teach seminars and training classes, a quick magic trick used as an analogy to something that we are teaching can be entertaining and memorable. Doing a card trick in a boardroom presentation may not work as well, though.
Teach The Audience Something that will Surprise Them
When we teach team-building activities, we often start will a memory trick that helps the audience improve their memory very quickly. It is a simple technique that anyone can learn, so it is awe-inspiring to most audiences. When I was in school, a speaker showed us how to read faster by having us read a section from a book in our usual way for 60 seconds. Then, he had us read again, but this time pointing to the words in the book with our left hand as we read. The second time that we read, we gained as many as a couple of dozen extra lines of reading. It was really cool. Try it yourself.
Props can Add Showmanship
When legislators were trying to get people upset about the healthcare legislation in 2009; they just printed out the thousands of documents that made up the bill. The piles and piles of unreadable pages were pretty overwhelming and made a valid point. When I was starting out teaching leadership classes, I found a toy that was a tiny shipping box that, when I pushed a button, shook and said, “Let me out of here!” I used it as a prop when I talked about self-confidence, saying, “we all have that confident person inside of us who is struggling to get out and be seen.”
A Good Leave-Behind can Add Showmanship
A handout, book, or another type of reference item can make you more memorable. When we teach our leadership classes, we have a business card holder with a series of leadership principle cards that we give to every participant as a way to reinforce the crucial principles from the course.
