There have been a couple of interesting news stories relating to public speaking in the past couple of days.
Gerald Ratner Autobiography
He got laughs and a standing ovation but the longer term outcome of his speech was a billion-pound turnover slashed overnight, £500 million knocked off the valuation of his company and, ultimately, the loss of his £650,000 salary and position running the family firm he had been involved in for 30 years. He has since rebuilt his career (hence the book's title) but his name will always be associated with that speech.
As a speaker, I am a great advocate of self-effacing humour, after all, making yourself the butt of a joke means you are unlikely to offend anyone else but the problem in this case was that the jokes weren't self-deprecating - they made fun of an entire business empire and its customers which affected its shareholders and staff, not to mention Mr Ratner's own family.
Public Speaking Tip #52: All jokes have a victim so self-effacing humour can be the safest variety - just make sure that no-one else can get caught up in any fallout!
A Nasal Spray to Fight Public Speaking Fears?
Monday's Daily Telegraph carried a story about researchers at the University of New South Wales who have developed a nasal spray which may help people with social phobias overcome their fears of attending work parties, performing karaoke - or public speaking!
As part of the study, 23 shy people (who had also had exposure therapy) were asked to make a speech and the results, when compared with those who had received no help, were described as 'astonishing'.
Of course, there are, as yet, no nasal sprays to help with selecting and structuring content, stance, voice projection, etc. Medicines can take years to come onto the market and when they do, may prove to be costly or have side-effects.
If you visit the website of the Stage newspaper, in their Advice section, the showbusiness life coach John Byrne has written an excellent advice guide on How to Cope with Nerves:
Public Speaking Tip #53: The world of showbusiness may seem far removed from the formality of public speaking but tips for entertainers of all kinds can still apply to us.
He writes that medication tends to suppress symptoms of nervousness rather than deal with their root cause. The university researchers stress that their spray does not work on its own but has to be combined with therapy.
I have more reason than most to believe that exposure therapy beats medication hands-down.
Public Speaking Tip #54: As far as public speaking is concerned, regular practice is exposure therapy for those who are nervous about it - and far more effective in the long term than medication.
And as for partygoers and singers, well, there are far too many of them putting substances up their noses already!
Write-up in the New Milton Advertiser and Lymington Times
Somewhat lower down in the circulation figures is a wonderful weekly newspaper sold in the New Forest area: The New Milton Advertiser and Lymington Times. It comes out every Friday (price 30p!) and is a good old-fashioned, local broadsheet. It gives details of many of the talks that have taken place in the area it covers and I have had a couple of further positive mentions recently to add to the many that they have published about me over the years.
I wrote in my posting of 10 October about making use of testimonial letters. Positive write-ups from local newspapers, church magazines, company newsletters and websites can also help publicise your speaking, enhance your CV, etc. Their content is often brief (press officers sometimes send in hundreds of words about a speaker only to see just a couple of sentences actually published!) but they reach a wide audience and, in the case of online testimonials, can be viewed for a long time afterwards - sometimes even years.
Public Speaking Tip #55: Positive reviews of your speaking performances from publications and websites can be used in your promotional materials and can sometimes even lead directly to further bookings.
Public Speaking Tip #56: Local newspaper write-ups about other speakers can also be a useful guide to available markets for you.
There is a temptation when quoting from these references to put the date they appeared so people will see how recently the speaking engagement and praise occurred but this can also have the unfortunate effect of making your publicity look out-of-date if you are not revising it regularly. It may also give the impression that you are not very often booked to speak if the last testimonial is dated six months ago. It shouldn't matter to anyone interested in hiring you whether somebody wrote in complimentary terms about your presentation two days or two years ago - only that they meant it!
Public Speaking Tip #57: There is no need to date your testimonials - the important thing is that you have received this unsolicited praise.
