WISDOM IN A NUTSHELL
Secrets of Successful
Speakers
How You Can Motivate, Captivate &
Persuade
By
Lilly Walters
McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1993
ISBN 0070680345
216 Pages
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Secrets of Successful Speakers Page 2
Overview
This book is an excellent resource for anyone who needs to learn
effective techniques for public speaking. Walters has compiled quotes
and advice from dozens of well-known speakers such as Steve Allen,
Ken Blanchard, Tony Robbins and others. These ideas are
interwoven around Walters’ categories for preparing for a speech,
overcoming stage fright, motivating an audience, etc. Some of the
advice below is written first-person as given from the expert ("I cure
stage fright by - ").
Key ideas
If you approach each audience with an attitude of generous love,
there will be no room for fear.
Forget about stage fright! Think about all the problems your audience
needs you’re your solutions to.
You seldom prepare for conversation at parties, I doubt whether you
even need note cards! Consider your next presentation as an
expanded parlor conversation with the added advantage of
preparation.
Credibility comes from what:
you say (content),
how you say it (delivery), and
who you are (character).
You’ve got to make sure you’re immersing yourself in your topic
regularly to stay up to date on it.
There are generally five kinds of presentation styles:
persuasive,
explanatory,
instructional,
oral report, and
entertaining.
Ask yourself, "If I had only 60 seconds on the stage, what would I
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Secrets of Successful Speakers Page 3
absolutely have to say to get my message across?"
In one clear sentence, state what dominant idea your listeners must
take home. This should be the essence of your mission statement.
If you met one of you audience members on the street a year from
now, what three things would you hope they would remember?
BAIR test to help you plan a speech:
B = Benefit-oriented
A = Adequately stated
I = Independent to the other points
R = Relevant to the mission and/or theme
Is the image that you are painting in their minds the one you
intended?
Develop your own original material - whenever something interesting
or humorous happens, write it down. Don’t be afraid to take old
material and give it a new slant. New material comes through alert
living every day.
Be aware of, and experience life so you can share those experiences.
The specific ideas you wish to get across may not be original, but the
way you get the audience to remember those ideas must be.
Walters often says in her talks, "As I talk to you I am really integrating
and pulling together not only my thoughts but other people’s. If there
is anything I say that sounds familiar, that you feel somebody else
has worked on, I would love for you to let me know." "As the old
saying goes" - "you’ve heard it before but it’s still true."
Three points before writing a speech:
1. Know exactly how you want to change the audience members’
action and attitudes when they leave your presentation. Have an idea
how you want to accomplish this.
2. Realize they won’t remember more than a few points anyway, so
decide what three or four points they must remember and design the
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Secrets of Successful Speakers Page 4
speech around them.
3. Speak with passion for your topic and compassion for your
audience.
Organization consists of taking your two most important points and
putting one at the beginning and one at the end of your talk. It’s then
a matter of building a bridge from one to the other.
Questions to ask yourself in creating a persuasive title:
Does the title stress benefits rather than the features?
Does the title stress the WIIFM factor, which means "What’s In It For
Me?"
Does it reflect the concerns or problems facing the industry?
Does it stimulate the imagination?
Is the title easily remembered, orally and mentally?
Make them think or act in the first few minutes. Find ways to surprise
them. Perhaps ask them to take out a pen, stand up, or move over a
seat - anything to create a surprise that reinforces the mission.
Other classic openers for speeches include the following:
Ask the audience a question.
Cite a historical reference related to your topic.
Recite a poem, rhyme or quote.
Play music or other unusual sound.
Use metaphors to get the audience’s attention. Instead of saying the
Empire State building is "so many" feet high, it would be more
effective to say, it’s as big as putting 30 (or however many) railroad
cars end to end up to the sky!
At the end of your presentation,
What are you calling on them to do?
Are you asking for the sale?
Are you asking them to donate more time to the homeless?
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Secrets of Successful Speakers Page 5
To change their eating habits?
Give examples of other’s success stories. Inspire them to taste the
results and to realize that the value of the change is greater than the
way things have been.
Establishing eye contact with the ‘Magic V’- When you look at
someone, everyone in a V-shape behind that person thinks you are
looking at them. When the crowd is large, use the Magic V. Draw a
‘tic-tac-toe’ in your mind over the crowd, and make sure you work the
squares at random.
If you don’t know the answers to their questions- Try opening the
question up to the audience. You can say, "What an excellent
question!" Look at the rest of the group and say, "What is your
experience on that?" With luck, someone will know. "That’s a very
insightful question that I hadn’t though of before. Give me your
business card. I’m going to research the answer, and send it to you."
If they won’t ask any questions - Break up the audience into small
subgroups to come up with questions.
Other questions that the speaker can ask to help stimulate audience
questions:
1. What didn’t I cover clearly?
2. What have I left out?
3. What questions came to mind while I was talking?
Please come up with three or four questions that you wish I would
have covered. If you could gain only three or four useful ideas from
this seminar today, what would they be?
Sometimes well-known speaker Rosita Perez talks to people before
the presentation and asks them to help her. She gives them
numbered cards. At the appropriate moments she’ll say, "Now who
had #1?, could you help explain what I just said?"
If a small group is spread throughout a big auditorium, try to pull them
forward. Tease them with lines like: The Lottery tickets for the
Mercedes are taped under the seats on the first four rows.
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Secrets of Successful Speakers Page 6
Dealing with a heckler or people who don’t want to be there - explain
to the planner that they should be ready to go to the heckler and say,
‘you have a message’ or ‘you have a phone call.’ Get them out of the
room and deal with it outside.
When an audience is hostile, try to find ways to give your listeners the
opportunity to talk about themselves. Group sessions where they
come up with solutions to whatever made them angry can be very
effective. Break up the groups of complainers and try to seat them
next to the more enthusiastic ones.
You can dissipate some of the ‘I don’t need to be here’ anger if you
let audience members know at the beginning that they have been
specially chosen to attend.
One speaker in the book said that when she is losing the audience’s
attention, she will sometimes say, "You’re such a great audience, I’m
going to do something special - entirely different than I normally do."
They wake up and pay attention. She goes right on and does what
she usually does. However, they don’t know that.
The most important thing to remember in any program is first to flatter
your audience. If you do that at the beginning, you’re home free.
When you come up to the lectern, enter boldly. Give the feeling of
excitement and enthusiasm for this audience. Stop, look, and listen,
before you start to speak. Take a moment and read the audience,
and what they need. This pause also gains their attention.
I give the introducer a written introduction for my talk, and ask them
not to vary from it. Before the talk I ask the introducer to go over the
introduction with me.
When your microphone acts up:
"Whatever it is, it’s getting closer!"
"How many of you in the back of the room read lips?"
"All right God, I’ll change the subject!"
"Just my luck - the light at the end of the tunnel was a locomotive."
"The ability to be cool under fire is such a great skill. I wish I had it."
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Secrets of Successful Speakers Page 7
"Cut! Take two!"
Ask yourself what the audience must (1) know, (2) feel, and (3) do
differently when they leave you.
How to Memorize Your Material
Tape yourself giving the speech. There is something about your own
voice talking that makes memorization easier. Use diagrams or mind
maps of key words to help remind you of the main topics.
Have two great endings. One before the questions and answers, and
another when you cut the Q&A off.
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