Welcome to our many new subscribers who signed up through, Opinion Surveys, Profit Info, BizNewsletters, Antion.com, Zmedia, RankYou and our many other signup partners. (see bottom if you no longer wish to receive "Great Speaking" WE MADE INC. MAGAZINE'S "BEST OF THE WEB" THIS MONTH Our sister site http://www.public-speaking.org got the only excellent rating (see "Simple Sells" below) Two Brand New TeleSeminars next week ########################################## GREAT SPEAKING Circulation 74,560 Vol. 3 Number 15 - August 8, 2001 Publisher: Tom Antion tom@Antion.com http://www.Antion.com (C) Anchor Publishing 2001 ########################################## No one ever lost credibility by being interesting. ========================================== *** SPEAKER BUSINESS LEADS *** Your subscription gets you free speaking leads when available. WE PAY YOU TO SEND US SUBSCRIBERS http://www.listpartners.com/cgi-local/cashpartner?406 Please recommend this E-Zine to anyone you know that is interested in being a better presenter, or who may want to make money speaking and training. (It's a good way to stay in touch with client's too.) You don't even have to mail them an article. http://www.antion.com/recommend.html If you are receiving this issue as a forward, and would like to get your own free subscription, visit http://www.antion.com/ezinesubscribe.htm To remove yourself from this list see bottom of this email. PRIVACY STATEMENT: We will not distribute your address to anyone. Period. ============================================= IN THIS ISSUE ============================================= 1. Quick Presentation Skills Tip 2. Advanced Presentation Skills Article (Beginners should read this too) 3. Humor Technique Series 4. Speaker Marketing Tip 5. Speaker Humor 6. Websites for Speakers ********** OUR SPONSOR *********** THE BUTT CAMP TELESEMINAR AUDIO TAPES ARE FINALLY HERE. You can now experience Tom's infamous Electronic Marketing "Butt Camp" in your car, or while listening to your Walkman. 6 hours of the best of Internet marketing for our industry. Includes 35 page comprehensive downloadable handout, with over 100 e-marketing links. . . .Two bonus E-books PLUS a special limited time offer that includes a phone consultation with Tom. Check it out at http://www.antion.com/buttcampteleseminartapes.htm P.S. Your tape purchase gets you $99.00 of a live Butt Camp Admission. Next one is just outside Washington, D.C. http://www.antion.com/buttcamp.htm ************************************ ===================================================== 1. Quick Presentation Skills Tip ===================================================== TELESEMINAR TIPS by Tom Antion => Use a headset => Cut out all distractions on your end, like other phones ringing, kids, dogs etc. => Send good instructions to participants well prior to the call, telling them to mute their phone, no speaker phones, use a headset, cut out distractions, your policy on questions, etc. => Be very clear about start times and time zones so that people don't call in too early or too late. => Make handout and printed material downloadable. This saves you printing an mailing and if you do it right, any links you put in the handouts can be clicked on by the participant. => Tape the seminars to critique yourself and to create instant products. ************ SPONSOR ************ TELESEMINARS NEXT WEEK Monday August 13, "HOW I MADE 18K ON MY LAST TELESEMINAR" This TeleSeminar gives all Tom's behind the scenes strategies on building up to a large Telephone Conference event that pays off BIG with virtually no investment or risk. Tuesday, August 14, "HOW TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER EITHER FULL TIME OR PART TIME" This beginner level teleclass give you a glimpse of life as a paid speaker and the steps you need to take to tap into the lucrative speaking and training markets. Tuition for each seminar is $20.00 Register at http://www.antion.com/speakershop.htm Click on "Current TeleSeminars" ********************************** ************ SPONSOR ************ FREE AUDIO SEMINAR ON CREATING INFORMATION PRODUCTS I arranged with media personality Bart Baggett for him to allow "Great Speaking" readers to hear a seminar that attendees paid $97.00 each to attend. http://www.bartbaggett.com/antion ********************************************* ===================================================== 2. Advanced Presentation Skills Article ===================================================== MENTAL INVOLVEMENT Part III by Tom Antion In the last two issues we talked about using different types of questions to get your audience mentally involved (http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues2001.htm v3n13 and v3n14) In this issue we'll learn how breaking large groups up into smaller discussion groups or asking audience members to get a partner for discussion is another way to force them to think. When in smaller groups individual audience members must come up with ideas themselves while you are totally out of the picture. When you ask them to break into groups, you have also overlapped your mental involvement with physical involvement (kind of like getting a two-for-one happy hour discount). This is one of the few times it is acceptable to turn your back on the audience. Many presentation skills coaches say you should never turn your back but I disagree. When you break groups up it is their turn to be the stars. Turning your back and moving away from them takes all the focus off you. I usually give them clear instructions about what to discuss, then I give them a clear command to break up into groups, then I turn my back and walk away. Many of your less boisterous audience members like breaking up into small groups. They are too shy to stand up and express their opinion in front of the whole audience, but they feel comfortable talking to a few others or one-on-one. A good technique to connect with this type of audience member right away is to make an announcement that puts them at ease. "We'll be doing some group discussions today. No one will be put on the spot unless they want to be." This statement near the beginning of your presentation will immediately gain the attention of the less outgoing members. You can add some fun to the process of splitting up the audience. Break the audience up into groups of five and tell them the group leader will be the person in the group with the most grandchildren, or the most pennies in his or her pocket, the most buttons, etc. You can be very flexible with this so that no one is forced to be the group leader. Use a different group leader selection method each time the same audience is split up. After the discussion the group leader is charged with reporting the findings to the entire audience. A great resource is the "Games Trainers Play" series by Edward Scannell and John Newstrom. These volumes, which can be purchased separately, contain literally hundreds of educational activities, exercises, and icebreakers. Excerpt from "Wake 'em Up Video Professional Speaking System" http://www.antion.com/speakervideo.htm *********** SPONSOR *********** FREE 7 Day Electronic Marketing Mini Course mailto:minicourse.GS026@aweber.com ******************************** ===================================================== 3. HUMOR TECHNIQUE ===================================================== PATTER MATTERS by Tom Antion I talked about using magic in your presentations a while back in v2n9 http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues2000.htm In that article I briefly mentioned that the "patter" or what the magician says is frequently the way the fun is added to the magic trick. Let's look at patter for speakers a little more closely. Patter when you aren't using magic could be things you say while someone is participating in a demonstration on stage or it could be while they are coming up to the stage or when an unexpected occurrence happens while you are speaking. Suppose you were doing some kind of demonstration that required the participants to put paper bags over their heads. You could be cracking one liners like "Don't worry. This bag has been sanitized for your protection." Or, "This bag has been known to improve some people's love lives" If a participant is walking toward the stage slowly, you could hum the Jeopardy theme or say something like "I think I'll stop by Starbucks and have a triple Frappechino Latte with foam, whip cream and cinnamon while I'm waiting for you to get up here." Of course you would say this in a fun rather than attacking fashion. When something happens that totally distracts the audience like a police car siren going by the building, polished presenters use a form of patter called "Pre Planned Ad libs" like "Oh, My ride is here" or "I knew I shouldn't have taken my wife's anniversary present as a tax deduction." Pay attention to the situations you either create on stage or in the audience and to the potential distractions that may occur while you are speaking and create funny patter lines to use during those settings and you'll really add polish to the entertaining parts of your talks. The book below has over 100 ad libs for all kinds of settings. ********* GREAT SPEAKER REFERENCE ******* BE THE HIT OF YOUR NEXT PRESENTATION! "Wake em Up! How to Use Humor and Other Professional Techniques to Create Alarmingly Good Business Presentations" "Toms program and materials will cut five years off a speakers learning curve." -- Cavett Robert, Founder National Speakers Assn. Now available for immediate download in pdf format http://www.antion.com/speakershop.htm click on "E Books" For a FREE Chapter visit http://www.antion.com/products/produc~3.htm ********************************************** ===================================================== 4. $$$$$$$ SPEAKER MARKETING TIP $$$$$$$$ ===================================================== SIMPLE SELLS by Tom Antion I've come up with example after example over the past couple years of how having a simple, yet professional website attracts business better than a complicated flashy site. Again, this month I've got an awesome example of a site that for a very tiny investment has brought me an enormous return. That site is http://www.public-speaking.org This month it got in the very prestigious section of "Inc. Magazine" called "Best of the Web." Not only did it get in the section, it got the highest rating of all the other sites, some of which were backed by extremely large corporations. You can read the entire article here http://www2.inc.com/search/23233.html Folks, this didn't happen by accident, although there is always an element of good fortune when something like this occurs. My experience has shown that gaining knowledge in your field usually accelerates your good fortune. The technique I used with this site was to prepare it specifically for acceptance by Yahoo! the grandaddy of all the search directories. It has a clean and simple appearance. It's extremely easy to navigate. The name is alphabetical so it gets listed higher in the directory. It has a nice graphic banner with the organization name on it. The site has many other nuances that I teach in Butt Camp to secure a good Yahoo! listing. The only thing at all that moves on the site is a pop up box that I only recently put on to get more ezine subscribers. Here are some of the comments from their panel of CEOs: "Quick and easy to use. The glossary lists most of the important things that all speakers should know." "Excellent content." They didn't say, "I was so impressed with a hard to load annoying Flash presentation" now did they? Get people that don't know you, or that don't know you well to go through your website and pick it apart. Yes, it might hurt after you've sunk tons of money into some fabulous artistic design, but it's going to hurt worse if no one comes to your site because they can't find it easily and if they come there and leave immediately because they can't figure out what to do. NOTE: The site below is where I began learning about E Marketing http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/12273/ Good and easy to use shopping cart system http://www.kickstartcart.com The email list management company I use http://www.postmastergeneral.com/?affiliate=antion Get your own associate program and have other websites selling tons of your products and services. http://www.marketingtips.com/assoctrac/t.x/12273 Tom's Top Ten Marketing Resources page http://www.antion.com/marketingtools.htm ********* SPONSOR ********* WANT TO BE A BUSINESS COACH? If you're interested in becoming a business coach, Or you need coaching skills in order to improve your The chances of being promoted? Visit http://www.b-coach.com **************************** ===================================================== 5. SPEAKER HUMOR ===================================================== => If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving is not for you. PROOF YOU ARE OVER THE HILL => Your childhood toys are now in a museum => Your new easy chair has more options than your car => Someone compliments you on your new layered look and you're wearing a bikini. => You look both ways before crossing a room. => When a night on the town costs you two on your back. WOMEN => The movie fatal attraction really ruined things for us. You can't even call a guy 150 times a day any more without him getting bent out of shape. -- Lisa Goich => All women want is a man who will share our hopes, our thoughts and our dreams and if he won't . . . we're going to bitch at him till the day he dies -- Stephanie Hodge => Why pound a nail with $80.00 shoes and ruin them. I use a $2.00 package of frozen hamburger. -- Jeannie Dietz => There are over 25,000 sex phone lines in the USA for men and only 2 for women. Apparently when we want someone to talk dirty and nasty to us we just go to work. -- Felicia Michaels MEN => I was dating this girl for two years and then the nagging started . . ."I want to know your name." => I'm still going on bad dates . . .by now I should be in a bad marriage. => I took a girl horseback riding on a date once. . . .It went pretty well until we ran out of quarters. => Why don't they put "get to the point" options on voice mails? => What exactly is viewer discretion? If viewers had discretion, most TV shows would not be on the air. -- George Carlin => "Therapy" is a really easy game show where every answer is "My Mom." -- Robin Greenspan Much more FREE speaker humor at http://www.antion.com/humor/speakerhumor/speakerhumor.htm ===================================================== 6. USEFUL WEBSITES ===================================================== http://www.StamOnline.com Promotional specialties for speakers and WOW their customer service is unbelievable http://www.incrediblyuseful.com/ I guess it's obvious that this site picks an incredibly useful site every day. Take a look. http://www.photonet.com Kodak sponsored site to do all kinds of things like get prints of your digital photos ****** EARN BIG REFERRAL COMMISSIONS ****** You can earn a 10 - 25 percent commission for referring Tom for speaking engagements and bulk product sales. Commissions normally start between $850.00 and $1700 depending on your level of involvement. For complete details visit http://www.antion.com/referrals.htm *********************************************** ===================================================== FREE ARTICLES FOR YOUR PUBLICATIONS ===================================================== I have many articles available for reprint in your publication, company newsletter, etc. You may use articles written by me that you see in great speaking. Back issues can be viewed at http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues.htm OR mailto:freearticles@antion.com for an automated list of additional articles. All you have to do is print the article in its entirety along with the by line at top and the credits, and complete contact information at the end of each article. I would appreciate a tear sheet or electronic copy too. Thanks ******* Do YOU WANT TO BE A SPONSOR? ******* REACH OVER 74,500 SPEAKERS / TRAINERS / EXECS For automated sponsorship details send mailto:sponsor@antion.com or visit http://www.antion.com/sponsor.htm *********************************************** ===================================================== To subscribe to GREAT SPEAKING visit http://www.antion.com/ezinesubscribe.htm For Back Issues visit: http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues.htm ===================================================== Antion & Associates / Anchor Publishing Box 2630 Landover Hills, Maryland USA 20784 (301) 459-0738, Fax (301) 552-0225 In Continental US (800) 448-6280 orders or paid consulting only mailto:Tom@antion.com http://www.antion.com Trade permanent links with us mailto:linktrade@antion.com To Join our associate program and make money from your website visit: http://www.antion.com/associates/assoc_program.htm