Welcome to our many new subscribers who signed up through, Opinion Surveys, Profit Info, BizNewsletters, Antion.com, Zmedia, Office lists and our many other signup partners. (see bottom if you no longer wish to receive "Great Speaking") We now offer FREE email accounts. Visit http://www.GreatSpeaking.com AOL members click here Tom's live seminar schedule is below. ########################################## GREAT SPEAKING Circulation 155,837 The largest speaking ezine in the world Vol. 4 Number 14 - September 10, 2002 Publisher: Tom Antion tom@Antion.com http://www.Antion.com (C) Anchor Publishing 2002 ########################################## 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. Send this and tell them you were just thinking about them.) 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. See entire statement at subscribe link above. ============================================= 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 Visit the Speaker Shop for the finest in professional level speaking training http://www.antion.com/speakershop.htm ** TOM'S LIVE INTERNET MARKETING CAMP SCHEDULE ** Sunday Sept. 15, San Francisco, CA, (includes special follow-up TeleSeminar because some attendees must leave early for Yom Kippur.) Sunday, Oct. 13, Ft. Lauderdale, FL Sunday, Oct. 20, Norfolk, VA Sunday, Nov 10, Ann Arbor, MI Sunday, Nov 17. Lakeland, FL Once you attend once, you attend all regular ButtCamps for free for life. Your teenagers always attend with you for free. Register now for early bird discounts in Ft. Lauderdale, Norfolk, VA, Ann Arbor, MI and Lakeland, FL. http://www.antion.com/buttcamp.htm Can't make it? The six-hour audio tape set is on sale now! Learn to sell a ton on the web, just like Tom does. http://www.GreatInternetMarketing.com/buttcamptapes.htm ***************************************************** ===================================================== 1. Quick Presentation Skills Tip ===================================================== SIT DOWN by Tom Antion I keep a chair on stage with me and quite frequently I'll just sit down. Sometimes I keep two chairs and put my feet up on one while I'm sitting down. Sometimes I'll be standing and put one foot on the chair and lean on my knee while I'm talking. Some people have a barstool type of chair so they can take a load off their feet, but still be pretty much upright while they are presenting. This position can make you appear very relaxed on stage. I haven't seen any bean bags on stage yet, but hey, you could be the first. :) OK I know the Toastmasters out there are having heart attacks and thinking how unprofessional this is. I beg to differ. Professional means having a tremendous influence on the audience and making an impact. I use the chair technique as an attention gaining device and also to take emphasis off myself while the audience is watching a video clip. I just go sit down and get out of the way. Don't be afraid to do something out of the ordinary when the situation allows . . . you don't want to be ordinary do you? If you do, you're reading the wrong e-magazine. *** MORE FREE PROFESSIONAL SPEAKING TIPS *** Sign up for "The Professional Speaker" weekly TipZine at http://www.professionalspeaker.com ********************************** ********** GET FUNNY ********** with John Connor's one-on-one comedy training seminar. Learn comedians' secrets for creating laugh-out-loud moments in your speeches, including writing and performance. http://www.JohnConnor.com/get_funny.php mailto:John@JohnConnor.com ******************************* *** JOIN THE GREAT SPEAKING AFFILIATE PROGRAM *** Promote our speaking and Internet marketing products and services on your website. We have a proven track record of large numbers of products sold on the Internet. Everything we have is commissionable to you AND you can purchase things through your own link to get big rebates on everything we have to offer. Sign up is quick and easy and we have lots of sales ideas to get you started: http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/afsignup.asp?MerchantID=16070 ************************************************* ===================================================== 2. Advanced Presentation Skills Article ===================================================== RATE YOUR PRESENTATION SLIDES Part I By Dave Paradi When I work with speakers on effective use of presentation technology, one of the areas we look at are their presentation slides. Whether you use PowerPoint or some other program to create your slides, you can use the criteria listed below to rate how effective your slides are. OVERALL SLIDE DESIGN COLORS - The background and text colors need to have a high degree of contrast so that audience members will be able to clearly see what is being presented. Most presenters prefer dark background colors, such as dark blue, dark gray, dark green or dark purple. Studies have shown that colors have implied meanings, and these darker colors are usually acceptable. The text colors should then be bright yellow, white, beige or light blue. This contrast allows the words to float above the background and enhance readability. FONTS - The default fonts for headings should generally be serif fonts (like Times Roman) so that people spend a little more time reading them and get context for where you are in the presentation. Body text fonts should be sans-serif fonts (like Arial) so that audience members can more quickly read the points and return their focus to the presenter. Also, limit the number of different fonts used in the presentation to no more than three or four. SLIDE TEXT SLIDE DENSITY - A slide that is too dense - packed with too many words - will be hard to read and understand. A general guideline is to aim for six to seven points per slide and six to eight words per point. Bullet point form is much preferred over full sentences because it is quicker for the audience to get the key idea. TEXT BUILDS - One technique to help keep attention is to build the bullet points on the slide. This increases comprehension because the audience can focus on one idea at a time. TEXT MOVEMENT - When using text builds, you should not have the bullet points moving on the screen (i.e. flying in from all sides). Moving text is extremely hard to read while in motion, so most people wait until it stops before reading it. This increases the amount of time the audience is watching the slide and reduces the time they can receive valuable information from the presenter. In the next issue we'll discuss how to use graphics effectively and how to make your slides more understandable. ©2002 Dave Paradi Dave Paradi helps people effectively use technology to communicate. He is the author of the "Build & Deliver Effective Presentation Slides" CD training product and the bi-weekly e-zine "Communicating Using Technology". Access more articles at his web site http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com or contact Dave by e-mail at mailto:dave@communicateusingtechnology.com *********** SPONSOR *********** FREE 7 Day Electronic Marketing Mini Course mailto:minicourse.GS045@aweber.com ******************************** ===================================================== 3. HUMOR TECHNIQUE ===================================================== VOICES by Tom Antion You don't have to be a professional impersonator to use voices to add comedy to your presentations and stories. If you are really good at it, so much the better. If the person your are impersonating with your voice is not known to the audience, then anything you come up with will be perfect because they don't know how the person really sounds. You might even make up a person like your old uncle Elmer and use his voice. I impersonate my mother's voice during a story about her and since no one in the audience knows my mother, it doesn't really matter what it sounds like as long as it gets the point across that she is a meek lady from the backwoods of Pennsylvania. If you are impersonating a known person, either one from the group or a celebrity, then you better be pretty good at voices or you'll look a little foolish when you have to tell the audience who it was you were impersonating. BODY LANGUAGE Whether you are great at voices or marginal, your performance will be enhanced by adding appropriate body language while doing your voice impersonation. When I'm using my mother's voice, I get very small, sink in my chest, keep my hands close in, and lower my head. All these indicators add to the idea that I'm taking on my mother's persona during that part of the story. You will find that if you put in some time playing with different voices that your presentations will be lots more fun for both you and your audience. * ATTN AUTHORS, WRITERS, SPEAKERS, AND ANYONE WHO WANTS TO BE! * A friend of mine named Rick Butts just launched a cool new website called http://www.eBookSource.com. Rick is looking for authors to put their book on his cyber-shelves! They pay up to 70% commission when your work sells, and they handle all the credit card processing and send you a check. This is a terrific solution for anyone with an eBook, published book, set of articles, or other information.(eBookSource will even convert your manuscript into an eBook and create an eBook cover for you, too!) It's also perfect for an author who doesn't have real-time credit card processing on their site. Rick asked me to let all my information brokers know about this great opportunity, including fiction authors! He's also offering his 5 Day Mini-Course "eBook Power" FREE. Learn how to create, design, write, publish, package, and price your eBook to sell. mailto:mini-course@eBookSource.com ********************************************** ===================================================== 4. SPEAKER MARKETING TIP ===================================================== ASK AND YE SHALL CREATE by Dr. Jeanette Cates How do you decide to create a new speech? A new report? A net product? Most of us have an idea, then start to work on it. It's only when we are well into the creation phase that we determine whether or not it will sell. By then, it's too late! We've put time and effort into the production. Either we don't want to "waste" that time and effort, so we go ahead with a product destined to lose money or we "scrap" an idea that we're just SURE could have been productive if it only had time. What if we reverse this "create then market" paradigm? Let's determine FIRST if there is a market, then create the product the market wants. The Internet provides the ideal venue for this process because it's cost-effective to distribute your survey and it offers quick turnaround for responses. Your first step is to create a survey that you'll send to your target market. Your survey includes four parts: 1. Create a list of problems or issues that are typical of your target market. For speakers, for example, topics could include marketing materials, topic choice, product development, demo videos, office productivity, etc. 2. If appropriate, list several formats in which you can deliver the information. For example, as a speech, a special report, an audio CD, a videotape or a DVD. 3. List related questions. These could include: a. How much would you pay for . . . b. How likely would you be to . . . 4. Gather relevant information that could be useful now or in the future. These questions may be about the professions responding, types of computers or connections used, equipment available, etc. When you've completed your survey questions, you'll need to decide on the technology you'll use to deliver the survey - and to gather the answers. You are more likely to get a higher response if you send your survey via email. However, that means you'll need to compile the responses manually. If you're looking for a small number of responses, email works fine. For larger surveys, use a web-based survey service. Zoomerang is one of the better-known services which offers both a free and a fee-based survey service. As the last step in the Ask then Create system, invite people to participate in your survey. You can do this as a link from your website, in a pop-up window, or in an email message. You can increase the number of responses by offering a reward - a free article or report, a gift certificate, a copy of the results, an entry in a drawing, a donation to a charity. Be creative! What's YOUR reward? You get an exact description of the problem your target market wants solved. You'll see how they want the information delivered, how much they're willing to pay for it, and how likely they are to purchase. And THEN you create the ideal product. To see a survey in action, visit http://www.Tech4Speakers.com/survey1.htm Dr. Jeanette Cates is a professional speaker and editor of http://Tech4Speakers.com She is an Internet Strategist for Small Business and author of "Online Success Tactics: 101 ways to build your small business" 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 Tom's Top Ten Marketing Resources page http://www.antion.com/marketingtools.htm **** SPECIAL DISCOUNT ON "IMPENDING CRISIS" **** Heard the buzz? A powerful new book will be released in November: "Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People." Authors Roger Herman, Tom Olivo, and Joyce Gioia deliver clear evidence forecasting a labor shortage this decade. They say it will make the tight labor market of the late 1990s look like a practice session! This 350-page hardcover book is filled with knowledge you'll want to have before your competitors do. Pre-publication pricing enables you to buy this $30 book for just $21 plus shipping. You'll get your copy before it appears in bookstores! Check it out at http://www.impendingcrisis.com ************************************************ ===================================================== 5. SPEAKER HUMOR ===================================================== => Teamwork is important so you can blame someone else when something goes wrong => A bird in the hand is always safer than one overhead => A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking. => A fool and his money are soon elected. => A good scapegoat is hard to find. => If you examine two snowflakes, you'll see that no two flakes are alike. This is in contrast to politics, where all flakes are alike. => Negotiation is an attempt to reach a meeting of the minds without a knocking of the heads. => What was the best thing before sliced bread? => Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them? => If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked? => I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not too sure. => Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. => Always go to other people's funerals or they won't go to yours. => I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it. Much more FREE speaker humor at http://www.antion.com/humor/speakerhumor/speakerhumor.htm ===================================================== 6. USEFUL WEBSITES ===================================================== http://www.bibliofind.com rare book search associated with Amazon.com http://www.ivillage.com All sorts of women's issues. http://www.disasterium.com/ The almanac of disasters. Find a disaster that happened on the day you were speaking. We hope that your speech doesn't qualify for inclusion in next year's issue. :) http://www.dumblaws.com/ You'll get lots of speech humor at this site. http://www.deathclock.com Now here's an interesting site. It told me my day of death would be June 2, 2048 and also calculated the number of seconds I had to live. I can see uses for this in a speech encouraging people to use every second to it's fullest. I'm going to go back to the site tomorrow and get a second opinion :) ****** 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 You can also earn a great deal of money recommending our products and services as an affiliate. 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