1. Use props to help transfer your message and create additional audience impact. Don’t just tell me about it-show me! Unless, of course, it’s an elephant.
2. Use notes for reference. You don’t have to memorize your talk. You can use notes for reference until you own it. The difference between owning and memorizing? When you memorize something, you can forget your place, so the information you share is superficial. When you own your talk, the information you share comes from your heart.
3. Look people in the eye. Eye contact is one of the most critical elements in delivering a compelling talk. Always look at individual people when you speak-not at the group.
4. Move around the audience. Don’t stand behind a podium and create a barrier between you and the audience. Get out there, walk around, look them in the eye, touch them, and be “with them.”
5. Don’t end with a poem; end with your own words. If I want to read a poem, I can find it in a book. If I want to know what Abraham Lincoln said, I can go to a number of Web sites about Abraham Lincoln. The audience wants to be inspired and touched by YOU.
5.5 Relax! It’s just a speech. Have fun with it.
Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, and The Little Red Book of Selling. President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com
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permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer 704/333-1112
