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How to Build a Keynote. Follow the tips below the next time you are preparing to deliver a keynote. 1.

How to Build a Keynote

Make only three main points. If you can, give each point equal time. Additionally, make all of them tie back to the one Big Idea of the keynote - an opening belief/concept/philosophy/etc. How Does Your Personality Impact Your Presentations? Being an authentic communicator requires a firm understanding of who you are (Authenticity Rule #1 - Know Thyself) and how you are received by others.

How Does Your Personality Impact Your Presentations?

Your personality is a major factor in both. Today's post matches the four major personality types and their potential strengths and weaknesses in the area of speaking/training/teaching. Make a Boring Topic Engaging. The question every professor, teacher, lecturer, speaker and corporate trainer should be asking is, “How do I turn a boring topic into an engaging presentation?”

Make a Boring Topic Engaging

The reason for asking this question is simple: just because the data is inherently dull doesn’t mean the transfer of it from you to the audience has to be. All one-on-one of one-on-many presentations need to be engaging or the audience is going to lose interest and thus the presentation is a waste of everyone’s time and energy. The goal here isn’t to turn every presentation into a rock concert or three-ring circus. The goal is to be engaging as a presenter so you can earn the attention and trust of the audience.

The next time you are called to deliver a presentation over a boring topic (parliamentary procedure, last quarter’s sales report, tax law, etc.), incorporate a few of these techniques: Building Presentations with F.O.R.C.E. Next time you are developing a presentation, build it with F.O.R.C.E...

Building Presentations with F.O.R.C.E.

Focused - Keep your presentation's deliverable simple and focused. Do not try to cover too much ground on one topic or a few things about many topics. A famous trial lawyer once said, "If I give the jury ten great reasons to vote for my client, I might as well have given them none. One or two compelling reasons is the best approach. " Organized - I recently spoke at a high-powered leadership event in San Diego and the biggest gripe by the conference organizers of one of the other presenters was that they were all over the place. Masterfully Answering Questions. I work with student leaders every year who are preparing for competitive events where they must answer questions from judges - pageant contestants, competitive speakers, etc.

Masterfully Answering Questions

The following strategies are the bedrock of everything we work on together to help them shine answering questions. Authenticity Rules Main Page. 7 Authenticity Rules Lessons. A few quick lessons for applying each of the seven Authenticity Rules. 1.

7 Authenticity Rules Lessons

Know Your Self - What is your unique take on your content? Give them your opinion, your viewpoint, a story from your life, etc. Quotes from famous people work, but anyone (and everyone) can do that. Give us something new, fresh and, therefore, more interesting. Small Moves. One of my favorite movies is Contact.

Small Moves

It is a movie about a message sent from outer space containing instructions for building a vehicle to visit the message sender's planet. In the opening scene, a young girl is searching for a response from extra-terrestrials by scanning radio frequencies and sending out messages of her own. She is getting frustrated from not hearing anything and her dad instructs her to stay after it. 20 Tips from My Mentor. My mentor in the speaking business is Mr.

20 Tips from My Mentor

Bill Cordes (www.billcordes.com). Bill is not only a great friend of mine (he asked me to be the Godfather of one of his sons), he is also a phenomenal speaker, trainer and teacher. Here are 20 tools Bill has employed throughout his almost 30-year career: Bill Cordes' Strategies for Effective Speaking(I have seen him speak many times, but I compiled this list from just one program I watched him do.) Coaching to Performance. 6 Tools to Engage Any Audience. Your audience needs you to be skilled at earning, managing and maximizing their attention.

6 Tools to Engage Any Audience

Whether they pay attention to you and/or retain your message or not is primarily your responsibility. The following six tools are invaluable resources for highly effective trainers, speakers and teachers needing to engage any audience of any demographic - students or adults. Especially in today's noisy world, just asking your audience to sit and listen is not enough. If you want them to hear, process, retain and take action on your material, you must be skilled at getting them actively involved in the experience of the moment, not just the content of the message. 6 Audience Engagement Tools.

For Student Leaders Posts. (This post is specifically written for students preparing for competitive speaking events.

For Student Leaders Posts

However, professionals and non-competing students WILL get some utility from it.) I work with student leadership organizations at over 150 events every year and have for almost 20 years. These organizations include BPA, DECA, FBLA, FCCLA, FFA, HOSA, NHS, SkillsUSA, Student Council, TSA, and 4-H. One of the most beneficial elements of these organizations is all the public speaking they require their students to do. These can range from competitive events to community presentations to serving as an elected student leader and presenting in a myriad of ways.