Seminar Presentations

I came across a public speaking tip by Heidi Miller over at Talk It Up! blog. It works well as a sort of follow on from my last blog post. Heidi talks about seminar presentations. Here’s a quick extract from that article:

Public Speaking Tip #6

“Here’s the thing. For most seminar presentations at conference, you have an hour. You are not going to be able to change our lives in an hour. You are not going to be able to give us 10 things we are going to be able to absorb and implement in an hour. You are not going to be able to change our entire way of thinking about something in an hour…”

She’s absoutely right of course.  Of the speakers I’ve seen who don’t have any specific training other than being in a managerial position, most do exactly this.

They try to cram in a lot of infomation, without sparing a thought for us listeners who might not even know where to begin to implement any suggestions. Or even to understand the exact take away value from what they are telling us.

I certainly learnt something from Heidi’s article.

To read the full article click here.

Gaining an Audiences Attention

When you do public speaking, whether you are getting paid for it or not, you have to realise that an audience’s attention span is short.

I don’t mean to sound dull, but in this day-and-age with MTV-style editing on TV, thousands of channels, the internet people need to be able to flip from one piece of information to the next. I know, because I suffer from this myself.

I find it difficult to watch things on TV when I could be checking emails, blogging, reading a book and so on.

When I used to do stand-up I learned that you needed a string closing line and a strong opening. The rest would almost take care of itself. You need to “grab them by the lapels” to make sure they listen.

But what about during your speech?

I’ve talked elsewhere on this blog about watching dull speakers. Sometime you just need to find ways to wake ’em up!

Tom Antion talks about this very thing:

“After you have created your talk, go through it and make sure that every 2-4 minutes you use some kind of attention gaining device…”

Want to know some of the tips that he recommends? Sign up to his Membership site Amazing Public Speaking.

Top Comedy Secrets review

Let me start by saying that I don’t believe there is a single secret, tool, or formula that will make you a successful  humorous speaker or help you learn stand-up comedy.

But there are methods that allow you to harness the sense of humour you already possess. That, plus a little bit of effort.

I think it’s fair to say that every successful humorous speaker (and stand-up comedian) has strategies that, in some way, allow them to deliver a hilarious act on the platform.

According to the author of the Stand-up Comedy Fast Start Guide, Steve Roye, humorous speakers (whether they are aware of it or not)  are usually applying 3 Essential Strategies to get the results they want on stage.

They are able to do the following:

1. Produce large quantities of hilarious comedic material in the shortest possible time.

2. Test, edit, and refine their comedic material in the fewest performances possible.

3. Develop and maintain ultimate stage comfort.

It’s exactly the same for anybody looking to learn stand-up comedy. I am inclined to agree with him on this, as it outlines a basic blueprint for success and for developing a solid act as a speaker who incorporates humour into speeches and presentations.

I’m sure you’ll agree that if you have these bases covered, you have the greatest chance for success as a humorous speaker.

Steve also says that speaking professionals that maintain 45 seconds of laughter for each 5 minutes of presenting are kicking the proverbial posterior (my words not his).

Whereas, generally, stand-up comedians consistently succeed, or “kill”, their audiences get a minimum of 4 to 6 laughs per minute throughout their entire act. An important differenciation if you want to learn stand-up comedy.

I believe: “the funnier you are, the more money you make!” Yes, there is a certain amount of promotion and marketing tactics involved, but lets be honest if you don’t have “the product” (your speech) then you are essentially selling the sizzle without delivering the steak!

However, you must know how to get these strategies to work for you. The good news is, it can be done and there is a system that will work to help you accomplish your comedy goals as a humorous speaker.

I stumbled across the website for the Stand-up Comedy Fast Start Guide and I debated whether to purchase the e-books as I already had countless books on writing and performing comedy.

Being such “a student of comedy”, I’m a hard audience as I know and have tried the majority of approaches to humorous writing out there.

But sometimes you just have to move out your comfort zone and step off the comedy precipice.

I have to say that i have learnt more about the comedic writing and performing process since reading the “Fast Start Guide” than I have ever learnt anywhere else.

For my money the “Fast Start Guide” and the “Comedy Timing Secrets” bonus e-book are worth the cost alone. But you also get the very valuable “How to Read an Audience” e-book too.

I devoured these books in one sitting. That’s something that doesn’t often happen as I have fairly bad reading habits.

Although I think it is fair to say that comedy timing and the ability to read an audience comes with experience on stage. There are obviously certain techniques you can acquire if you want to learn stand-up comedy.

That said, the information in both those e-books alone detail exactly what you should be looking out for with an audience and what you can do to help you with your timing.

It puts into words what others know instinctively and that’s got to be a good thing?

The thing I always worry about is whether a guide such as  the Stand-up Comedy Fast Start Guide is going to explain to me why something is funny.

You’ve probably heard the comparison of analyzing why a joke (or routine) is funny to dissecting a frog; a handful of people find it interesting but ultimately both the joke and the frog die.

Well, I was pleased to discover that it doesn’t do this at all.

The downside to this guide is that the main e-book is under 40 pages in length and it doesn’t provide you with any real life war stories or examples of these techniques in action. I feel that that’s important if you want to learn stand-up comedy.

It would be good to know if the author can actually “walk the talk”.

It also, doesn’t make explicit how these techniques apply to the professional speaker and their need to add humour to their speeches. The book, itself, is specifically aimed at the stand-up comedian.

In order to work this out a certain amount of thought is requried as you essentially have to use the speech you already have for a basis for adding the required punchlines.

That said the techniques work for me, once i am able to set aside the part of me that tries to think up jokes.

If that has been your previous way of doing things then setting that part of your brain aside in order to capture your unique sense of humour will be a challenge.

The best thing for me about the Stand-up Comedy Fast Start Guide is that it made passionate about the whole process again.

I actually look forward to writing and I hadn’t done that for a long time. So don’t delay, go to this website right now:
Top Comedy Secrets.

Note: There are affiliate links on this page which means that if you purchase the product through my link I will get paid a commission. This is how I help pay the bills. If you’re happy with that please go ahead and use my link to make your purchase.

Comedy and Public Speaking

Being able to incorporate humour into your speeches is greatly going to help you become a popular and sought after speaker.

People always love it when a speaker can make them laugh. It especially helps when you can tie your humour into your speech topic, so that your message is better remembered.

Let me give you a bit more of a background to my experiences with performing comedy before I tell you about a great resource that I’ve come across.

Here’s a direct link Stand-up Comedy Fast Start Guide.

Here’s a little background for you. I originally did stand-up comedy for two years on the London circuit in the U.K.

I stopped performing, mainly because I got tied of trawling virtually the same 5-10 minute act around for those two years. My routines changed during that time, but my Stand-up Comedy act essentially remained unchanged.

I had no set approach for when I should develop more stand-up comedy material or how to develop it.

The stand-up comedians that I met during this time, and the advice I got given, could not tell me when my 5-minute set was “finished” and when I should create another five minutes – slowly working my way up the “stand-up comedy ladder.”

I often asked myself:

  • “how do I quantify a really funny comedy act?”
  • “does the audience have to be laughing constantly?”
  • “or is it okay for them to be laughing less often?”

I’d had seen comedians makes audiences gasp for breath and also ones that had an audience laughing, but not as frequently. And I’m not talking about bad open mike comedians either.

Towards the end of those two years I had lost all my passion for my material. I stopped enjoying writing jokes and something I couldn’t believe…

I actually stopped enjoying the performing!

I’d read countless books on stand-up comedy writing and I couldn’t make them work for me. Friends and audience members would say to me:

“hey, I like you’re stuff you sound really well-rehearsed and scripted.”

That was a nice back-handed compliment.

But no matter what method I used, my comedy material sounded exactly like that… material.

I sounded scripted because that’s what I was. I wrote material so that it looked good on paper, without it necessarily being good when I delivered it. But I wanted to find a way to truly capture my own sense of humour.

I kept reading in books that I had to write about 50 jokes a day, as I’m sure you have, and you have to throw out the rubbish ones and then write new ones.

I’m sure you understand the “panning for gold” theory behind this,like I do, but that’s a tonne of work! Especially when I don’t put that much effort into making people laugh in my day-to-day conversation. I mean how much effort do you put in to making people laugh in casual conversation? Probably not much, right? It just flows out of you.

Besides, the top gag writers in the world of comedy have been doing this for years, right? But in all honesty, by this point, I was disgusted with the whole process. I’m sure you’ve probably been in a similar situation.

I always found it a bit weird to write that many jokes in isolation from one another, then determine which ones did not work, and then wave them into a routine hoping that it would sound natural and be funny.

I was constantly being told I was much funnier in real life. But with the approach I had been using I couldn’t capture my natural sense of humour.

So you can imagine how frustrating and soul destroying this whole stand-up comedy game had become for me.

But all this was to change when I discovered the Stand-up Comedy Fast Start Guide. Read my review of that product here: Stand-up Comedy Fast Start Guide review

Note: There are affiliate links on this page. That means that if you make a purchase via my link I get paid a commission. It helps me pay the bills!

Public Speaking Fear – Nancy Tierney

I just want to touch upon some things that Nancy Tierney from Unconditional Confidence posted in my comments section relating to a previous post I made about the fear of public speaking. Re-read that here.

In case you haven’t seen it I’m going to comment on some of things that she’s written about it here. She said:

“When an actor is focused on creating a character they aren’t able to really be self-conscious. They are focused on their “work” rather than on what people may or may not be thinking of them”. Continue reading