Nick R Thomas - A Public Speaker's Blog

Tuesday, January 29

Short notice speaking around Swanage a speciality!

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Tue 29 Jan 2008 10:32 PM GMT

Harman's Cross Village Club

I was back in the Swanage area last Thursday afternoon, this time speaking at the AGM of the Village Club in Harman's Cross, a hamlet a little way outside the town. This was a short-notice booking which came in when I got back home from my previous Swanage talk. I was asked to stand in due to a speaker from the Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre having to cancel as he was busy giving 24-hour care to a baby woolly monkey so the villagers of Harman's Cross had to make do with a grown-up hirsute comedy writer instead!

Fortunately they had all been informed of the change in the programme at the business meeting before I arrived. There were nearly 50 there, I did about 55 minutes (Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer) and got a great response and a large number came up and chatted afterwards.

I had never actually been down into Harman's Cross before, either as a speaker or on any of my Purbeck coastal walks. Like Kington Magna in North Dorset, where I spoke last October, it has a few hundred people but no pub, etc, although it does boast a Post Office (well, for 3 days a week anyway!) and two service stations as you come in. And, like Kington Magna, it has a thriving hall, although this one is an old Nissen hut which they are busy raising funds to replace. The rural views from its windows are superb but I tried not to allow these to distract me while I was speaking! Another interesting aspect of this setting is that a station on the Swanage preserved steam railway route is yards from the hall.

Incidentally, eleven days is not the shortest notice I have had for a booking in this area; in 2004, I had been up writing all through one Monday night and I got a call at 10am to ask if I was available to speak to the National Trust in Swanage at 3 o'clock that afternoon as a speaker had just cancelled! I agreed, travelled over, delivered my talk to about 70 people without sounding too tired ('Dr Theatre' helping out again?) and it went very well. It is best to get some sleep before speaking, though!

These are two examples of covering cancellations for audiences who were appreciative right from the start but you may have short-notice engagements where you are not so fortunate so you might need to bear the following in mind:

Public Speaking Tip #121: Sometimes if you are a replacement for a speaker on a totally different subject from yours who has dropped out, this may not be announced until you are sitting there waiting to be introduced and you might have to hear groans of disappointment and perhaps even see the odd person leaving before they get to find out whether you are any good or not! You just have to be thick-skinned and give your presentation all you've got. Do this and you will have some audience members coming up afterwards and saying they preferred your talk to the one that was originally booked!

Something which did happen at Harman's Cross was that for the first time ever, I ran out copies of my booklet to sell - I was a couple short - but the talk went so well that there will be other bookings for this group and I will have another chance to sell them then.

Public Speaking Tip #122: If you sell anything at your presentations, such as books, recordings, etc, it's not a bad idea to have some simple order forms that people can fill in on the spot or take away so they can buy your merchandise through the post at a later date. This is useful if you sell out or potential customers want to 'think about it'. You could even leave some with the organisation for members who were absent - especially if your goods cover the content of a 'how to...' presentation. This idea may work particularly well if you are speaking a long way from where you are based.

My thanks to Keith, a club member, for the lift from the bus station and back again. As usual on my visits to Swanage, I went for a brief walk up to Peveril Point once I was back in the town. It was too dark to see much but old habits die hard!

An interesting fact Keith told me is that there are 120 clubs and societies in and around Swanage, an area with a population of around 10,000. Even if many don't book speakers or my subjects would not be suitable for them, that still leaves a fair number. In recent years, I have spoken to:

One of the two men's Probus Clubs
Swanage National Trust
Residents at a McCarthy and Stone complex
Worth Matravers Ladies' Club
A group meeting of three local Women's Institutes
Corfe Castle Probus Club
Durlston Women's Institute on two further occasions
Swanage Ladies' Luncheon club
and, of course, Harman's Cross Village Club

I have some repeat bookings coming up but doesn't this show that these are probably just the tip of the iceberg? I must find out about some of these other clubs and societies and send out a mailshot.

Public Speaking Tip #123: You discover new markets all the time; even relatively small towns can have a surprisingly high number of organisations which book speakers. Do you know about all the clubs and societies on your doorstep which might be interested in hearing you speak?

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Sunday, January 27

Thanks for a Proper Vote of Thanks!

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Sun 27 Jan 2008 01:38 AM GMT

Milford-on-Sea Probus

On Tuesday, I made a return visit to Milford-on-Sea Probus, this time to deliver my talk about Patrick Campbell. I was greeted at the South Lawns Hotel by the club's very friendly Programme Secretary Stan Kirtley and, after coffee and their short business meeting, I spoke to 35 appreciative members and guests for 50 minutes and then took questions. Then Mr Richard Mallory, who had been making notes throughout my presentation, proposed the vote of thanks.

And it was a good one.

It turned out that Mr Mallory is himself a fan of Patrick Campbell's writing and he had even brought along a copy of a Campbell book, one of several which he has collected over the years.

He mentioned what my talk had meant to him personally.

He added material from the notes he had made to the content he had prepared beforehand.

He provided some extra information about Campbell without in any way trying to 'top' what I had said.

What he said was warm and sincere and long enough to have some substance but without being in any danger of overrunning!

And I really appreciated the effort he had made because not everyone gets it right. Some people say very little (it can be very difficult to follow a humorous speaker anyway) and I don't so much mind that. But there was one 'vote of thanks' that I will always remember...

A few years ago, a Rotary Club in Hampshire invited me to be the guest after dinner speaker at their 20th Anniversary Charter Evening. It was a big 'do': black tie, Toastmaster, Rotary District Governor and an Archdeacon among the 75 attending - and six Rotary speakers on before me including a (rather long) slide show about the club's history.

It was after 10pm by the time it was my turn to speak and I agreed to cut my material short as the event was overrunning. Even so, late into a hot summer's evening, after a large dinner and so many other speakers, the audience response was somewhere between lukewarm and just about OK. There was one last speaker to go, a Committee member proposing a vote of thanks to me.

From the moment he started, he appeared determined to make full use of any time I had cut from own speech. He launched into a series of shaggy dog stories, totally different from the type of connected humorous anecdotes and observations which I deliver. He also read out a number of funny press clippings but whereas the ones I include are examples of amusing misprints and other unintentional humour, he just regaled the audience with newspaper articles about bizarre events which had been reported as such (there's no unintentional humour when the item is preceded by a punning headline with an exclamation mark!)

He seemed to speak for almost as long as I had and yes, he got laughs. But what I most remember about that event is the succession of his fellow Rotarians who came up to me afterwards and profusely apologised for what they saw as the bad manners of one of their own who had tried to upstage the guest speaker.

Public Speaking Tip #120: A vote of thanks should be warm and sincere without being sycophantic.

You should mention what the speaker's material has meant to you.

Make notes while they are speaking so you can combine observations about what they have said with any pre-prepared content. Failing to do this will result in a vote of thanks which appears to lack spontaneity.

By all means add a little extra of your own about the speaker's subject but remember: you are there to propose a vote of thanks to them - not to upstage them!

After my talk to Milford Probus, I enjoyed a very nice lunch at the hotel and was then given a lift back to Christchurch by Robin Haggett, a prospective new member of the club who had been visiting as a guest (they are looking for a few more to join). On the journey, he told me some fascinating tales connected with speaking in public and performance, firstly about his appearances on the TV quizzes Countdown, Eggheads and Family Fortunes (where his family won £3,000!) and secondly about his comedy award-winning son who is a clown with a small but very successful circus!

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Wednesday, January 23

Let him - or her - speak now!

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Wed 23 Jan 2008 07:26 PM GMT

Prince Charles speaks - as a hologram!

The Prince of Wales gave a powerful six-minute speech about the environment to 2,500 delegates at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Except that he didn't. His content may certainly have been powerful but it was actually pre-recorded in the drawing room at Clarence House last November and then projected as a hologram. The 3D HRH didn't want to leave a massive carbon footprint by flying with his entourage to the United Arab Emirates so he chose an alternative and very newsworthy method of getting his message across:

Fascinating and environmentally friendly - but also perhaps a little worrying.

And it's not just the wonders of modern technology such as holograms, videoconferencing and podcasts which me make wonder about the future of speakers actually giving live presentations in the same room as their audiences, there's also the little matter of future generations' attention spans.

We live in a sound bite society and the clips you hear on news programmes are perhaps half the duration they were a few years ago - and they were brief enough then! Meanwhile, as a member of the audience at a talk I gave yesterday pointed out, TV producers often seem to believe that viewers cannot stay with a segment of speech on a programme unless it is accompanied by loud and, ironically, distracting music.

I am fortunate to speak to mature audiences who are used to listening to longer talks on a regular basis. They would feel short-changed if I only did a few minutes and certainly would not want me to be accompanied by music or other gimmicks!

And for my part, I have the excitement of a live performance, often in front of large groups of people I have never met before. And when I leave, I often feel as if I have made that many new friends - even if I sometimes never see them again.

About 20 years ago, my partner Val and I started regularly visiting folk clubs. There seemed to me to be something romantic about the performers' lives: travelling, finding the venue, meeting the person who had booked them, setting up, performing for a fair fee to a small but appreciative audience in an intimate setting, chatting to some of the real characters afterwards, selling the odd recording and occasionally reaching a larger audience at a festival or even on radio or TV and earning bigger fees from private bookings.

I'm not musical but years later, public speaking gave me something comparable. My venues are usually hotels, community centres and village halls rather than pubs and I sell books not CDs but it's similar in most ways, right down to having the festivals, radio, TV and corporate work in my credits.

I love the whole business of public speaking, especially because, as an essentially very shy person, it's still sometimes hard for me to believe that I can do it. I love going past a venue where I have spoken in the past, seeing the lights on and knowing that the club or society still meets and is hearing a speaker.

The building next to my flat is a Natural Science Museum which puts on about 80 talks a year (I have, of course, been in there!) and I am always pleased to see their car park full.

And it gives me great satisfaction to know that I have trained a number of students who are now regular speakers on the circuit themselves.

But everything moves on. People lead busy lives and many organisations which book speakers are forced to close down because they cannot attract new, younger members or find volunteers to serve on their committees. I have seen so many disappear. We should all enjoy the luxury of attentive live audiences while we can.

Public Speaking Tip #119: If you are a speaker, then you should, as the saying goes, 'make hay while the sun shines' before new technologies, declining attention spans and changing tastes diminish the number of opportunities to speak. Few experiences can beat the satisfaction of delivering a decent length presentation to an appreciative audience who are just feet away from you.

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Public Speaking? I was driven to it!

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Wed 23 Jan 2008 06:03 AM GMT

Durlston WI

I had a great deal to do last Monday before I set off to give an afternoon talk in Swanage: I proof-read the 250 items of original observational humour that I was sending to a radio presenter and then I wrote my fortnightly 600-word article for the Radio Magazine. I then made notes from the online versions of most of that day's papers so that on the 65-minute bus ride over to the Purbecks I could use these as inspiration to write a minimum of half a dozen topical gags and observations for another radio presenter and a similar number for a further comedy client! I thought I was going to miss the the Wilts and Dorset service150 thanks to a connecting bus which was being driven so slowly that it would have been faster if we'd all got out and pushed but I did manage to catch it and by the time I arrived at Swanage, the material had all been written and emailed from my Blackberry in time for the respective deadlines so I made my way to the Mowlem Theatre for the WI.

Public Speaking Tip #115: If you own a car, using public transport to get to a speaking engagement may sound unthinkable (and it is certainly true that some venues are not accessible by bus, coach or train anyway) but it does have the advantage that you can use the travelling time for work - perhaps even some last minute revision or mental rehearsal of your presentation material!

People are frequently astounded that I travel to speaking engagements all over England by public transport. I have even had the odd club book me but then cancel when they have discovered this - despite there being very regular buses virtually to and from the door of their venue (thank you very much, a certain ladies' church group near Christchurch! If I can get to talks in Driffield, Grimsby, the West Midlands and Herefordshire then why would Burton have been a problem?)

Many car owners seem to be fascinated or even utterly perplexed by my means of getting around. The first time I ever spoke at a local Probus Club lunch, back in 1996, I was asked by their President to tell him something about myself for the introduction. It was at a time when I had become really busy so I told him that as well as having written for two BBC radio topical comedy series for many years, I was now writing humour for DJs on a daily basis and supplying scripts for cabaret acts and speakers. I added that a few months earlier I had performed a stand-up spot on a Radio 2 programme and had been interviewed afterwards by George Melly and that the previous year I had been on TV in a revival of What's My Line?

'And how did you get here today?', he asked.
'I was given a lift by one of your members, Mr So-and-so', I replied.

This was my introduction:

'Well, gentlemen, our speaker this afternoon is Nick Thomas. Now, I've been talking to Nick and he's a very interesting chap because he tells me he doesn't drive!'

Public Speaking Tip #116: Introductions may not always turn out the way you were expecting. Don't let this throw you!

The members of Durlston WI had heard me twice before and this time the subject was 'I Must Write That Down!: A Commonplace Book'. Regular readers of this blog may remember that this was the new talk I delivered to Southbourne Literary Society back in November. I was now presenting it to a different type of audience and although the subject itself is a literary one, I replaced some of the readings with personal anecdotes, some of them drawn from my other talks but new to this group. I must say this revised version fitted the allotted time perfectly - I was recording it and the 45 minute tape finished exactly as I was delivering the final quotation! I have already taken further bookings for this talk so it was pleasing to see that it appears to work for other audiences besides literary groups.

Public Speaking Tip #117: If you have specific presentations which you deliver on a regular basis to different audiences, aim to have more tried and tested material than you need to fill the time slot. This way, you can 'pick 'n' mix' the content so that it is more tailored to a particular group.

It also means that you could, perhaps as an emergency measure during a presentation which is not going as well as you had hoped, replace part of your planned material with something which might just work better with that audience.

Durlston WI put the speaker on just after the 2.30pm start of their meeting, unlike most Women's Institutes who have their business meetings and sometimes a tea-break before the talk. This is fine just as long as neither you or your audience members are running late!

Back in the late 90s, I spoke to another Purbeck area WI two years in succession. They started both these meetings at the very early time of 2pm and put me on straight away. Furthermore, the part of the room I was asked to speak from was right next to the door. On both occasions, a succession of latecomers arrived at regular intervals throughout my talk and had to walk past me to get in the hall! I would have no objection to speaking there again but can you guess what changes I might ask for if they book me a third time?

But there were no such problems with the 25 ladies at Durlston and after the tea and biscuits I left and they got on with their business meeting.

I have been trying to think when I last had a sequence like the first five talks of this year - all of them for ladies' groups for identical fees (plus travel where they were a bit further afield). It's funny how the bookings fall sometimes.

One thing I have to mention about my last half dozen talks is that merchandising has been virtually non-existent. This has been due to a combination of my having visited some organisations before so members have bought my booklet already, certain places having a 'no selling rule' and perhaps people watching their spending during the post-Christmas period.

I certainly intend to write other books to sell besides 'Nick R's in a Twist!' but I am still considering what form the next one will take. Humorous anecdotes about my writing experiences as opposed to speaking? Will that have the same appeal? It all needs to be carefully planned.

Public Speaking Tip #118: If you earn extra income through merchandising at speaking engagements, this will drop during repeat bookings unless you have a new item to offer/the organisation you are speaking to has a number of different members attending.

No visit to Swanage is ever complete for me without a walk up to look out across the bay from Peveril Point. One of the disadvantages in my not having a car is that I have to lug all my props, etc. around with me after a talk which means that I can never combine a speaking engagement with an unencumbered walk around a scenic area so I carried my heavy bags up the hill and got caught in an incredibly heavy rainstorm on the way down but never mind; overall it had been a good day.

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Sunday, January 20

Just doing a bit of window stopping

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Sun 20 Jan 2008 12:51 AM GMT

Emsworth WI

I was back in Emsworth last Friday morning for a return visit to their Women's Institute who I had last spoken to a year before. I arrived in good time and began my talk about Patrick Campbell for the 55 ladies present.

About halfway through, their President got a signal from a member in the second row that the room was too cold (they had heaters on but a skylight was open) so she stood up a few feet off to the side of me and started pulling the cords to try and close it. I was halfway through a story at the time and immediately most heads had turned to watch her, with the result that I was now seemingly talking to myself!

To have just stopped dead would have looked tetchy so I abbreviated that part of my presentation as best I could and waited for the matter to be sorted out. I got a laugh from the audience by saying that I expected the President to go shooting up into the ceiling on the end of the cord (it reminded me of the classic Gerard Hoffnung 'Barrel of Bricks' routine), the window was eventually closed, she apologised and I very swiftly re-capped and continued.

I have noticed that audiences who know each other well seem to be the most easily distracted if one of them arrives late, leaves the room, closes a window, etc - however well the speaker's presentation is being received. Other groups tend to be more focussed and better able to ignore such goings-on.

Interruptions are an occupational hazard for any speaker. When I was teaching my more advanced 'Stage 2' presentation skills evening classes, there would be a fun lesson where I would deliberately interrupt my more experienced students' presentations by dropping things noisily on the floor, banging doors shut, even sitting on a whoopee cushion, but this wasn't so much an exercise about coping with the unexpected, it was more to do with them not losing their thread.

A speaker has to make a very quick decision about how to deal with each interruption as it occurs. If you try to shout over the sound of the loud siren of the police car driving past the venue, you may give the impression that you are so at the mercy of your script that it will be fatal for you to stop! Some interruptions will dictate that you have to stop immediately anyway, for example, if an audience member is taken ill (this has happened during a few of my talks but I was reassured afterwards that it was nothing to do with my choice of material!) Sometimes the interruptions will continue throughout your presentation (I once gave talk to a Wine Circle who met in one room of a Community Centre while a local amateur dramatic society rehearsed the village pantomime in a neighbouring hall with very thin walls. Can you imagine that? Oh yes you can!) And there are occasions when you can just carry on and ignore what appears to be a minor interruption because stopping would draw it to the attention of people who wouldn't otherwise have noticed it.

The comfort of an audience is very important and I certainly would not have wanted the nice ladies of Emsworth to be cold - that would have been another, prolonged interruption in its own right - but I must admit that I was a little surprised by the level of distraction caused by this business; with hindsight, I think I would have preferred it if their President had stopped me, perhaps during a natural break in my material, in order to deal with the window.

Public Speaking Tip #114: If an interruption occurs during your presentation, you have to make a fast decision about whether to ignore it (such as in the case of someone's mobile going off) or stop altogether (for example, a medical emergency or noise which is too loud for you to compete with). An interruption is beyond a speaker's control; all you can do is control your response to it.

As with my last two visits to Emsworth, I went to Bookends and this time I picked up a slim volume of quotations, many of which were unfamiliar to me, and a biography of Jack Benny co-written by his widow. Benny was, of course, best-known as a stage, radio and TV comedian (not to mention violinist!) but he also gave highly-acclaimed speeches (which, according to this book, he wrote himself). I am really looking forward to reading the life story of a comedian and speaker who knew, perhaps more than any, the power of the pause - and had the confidence to employ it.

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Wednesday, January 16

TG Tips

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Wed 16 Jan 2008 10:00 PM GMT

Swanmore and Southbourne Townswomen's Guilds

I had two talks last Wednesday, both for Townswomen's Guilds here in Bournemouth. In the afternoon, I made a return visit to the Swanmore Guild where I last spoke 15 months ago. This time I spoke about 'The Power of Humour in Everyday Life' and this talk lasted just over 40 minutes as I was trying to save my voice as I had a further engagement that evening. There were about 25 present and it seemed to go ok.

The last time I spoke there, the afternoon was spoiled when, just as I was leaving, a member came up and moaned for several minutes about how unhappy she had been about the reply she had received when she wrote to a certain celebrity who I have supplied scripts for in the past - as if this was anything to do with me! It was rather like somebody complaining to a self-employed shopkeeper about the actions of one his customers!

I don't know if this lady was absent on my return visit but I was relieved that I wasn't accosted by her again!

Public Speaking Tip #112: Even when your presentation has been very well received by an organisation, you will, from time to time, find yourself approached by the odd individual with a negative outlook/axe to grind. Other members are often very good at spotting this and 'rescuing' a hapless speaker but if they don't, you just have to be polite - while making good your 'escape!'

Later, I spoke to Southbourne Evening TG about 'The Comedy of Life'. I certainly had plenty of material that they had not heard before as it was exactly eleven years since I last spoke to them! In the intervening period, the Afternoon Guild in Southbourne has closed down but the Evening TG has managed to keep going and, despite a number of absentees, there were still about 30 there. My voice held out long enough for me to speak for an hour and they were a lovely audience.

But why such a long period between the bookings? Could it have been something I said last time? No. In my early years as a speaker, I didn't offer much in the way of further titles as I was busy honing my original talk by delivering it to hundreds of different organisations all over the country. The Speaker Secretary who had originally booked me back in January 1997 passed away a number of years ago, just before I finally started adding new titles, and one of her successors heard about me from somewhere else and booked me, not realising that I had ever spoken there in the past.

Before leaving, I made sure they knew that I now have a number of additional talks!

Public Speaking Tip #113: You have to keep in touch with organisations you have spoken to in the past, for example, by sending details by post or email about any new talks you have to offer. When it comes to booking their programmes for a season, they will usually give preference to a good, reliable speaker who is already known to them.

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It's me again, doctor

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Wed 16 Jan 2008 01:19 AM GMT

Lilliput WI

I felt better by 8 January when I was due to speak to Lilliput Afternoon Women's Institute but Wilts & Dorset bus drivers were on strike that day so I had to catch a Bournemouth Yellow into Poole and then walk from Longfleet to the Holy Angels Church in Lilliput which took about 45 minutes! By the time I reached the venue, I was very hot and sweaty, coughing and feeling generally rough as I sat through the last 30 minutes of the ladies' business meeting but there is a concept known as 'Dr Theatre' where performers may feel better the moment they get up in front of an audience. It would obviously not apply if a speaker was suffering from the ghastly Norovirus which is sweeping the UK at the moment but as far as colds and the recovery period after the flu are concerned, it obviously works,

Public Speaking Tip #110: Even if you don't feel at your best before a presentation, once you start speaking, you may find that doing so gives you a boost, not least of all because you have something else to focus on. Let 'Dr Theatre' help you - and your audience!

It had been nearly a decade since I last spoke to this WI but it is still very well attended - there were about 55 present - and I managed to get through 'The Power of Humour in Everyday Life' without a further coughing fit or having to cut the talk short. (It is worth pointing out that although I wouldn't normally use a microphone with an audience of this size unless asked, I chose to on this occasion to save my voice).

Public Speaking Tip #111: Although I have often mentioned that microphones can be the source of numerous problems, there are occasions - such as when you are having problems with your voice - that they can be a speaker's friend.

I really was most grateful to Brenda Brewer for the lift back to Westbourne afterwards so I didn't have another long walk!

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Sunday, January 13

I'm on a little list (actually, rather a large one)

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Sun 13 Jan 2008 10:00 PM GMT

A remarkable list of public speaking blogs

Andrew Dlugan has compiled a list of no less than 93 blogs connected with public speaking and presentation skills tips (including, I am very pleased to say, this one).
They cover so many styles and aspects of public speaking that there is bound to be something to help you improve your presentations and you can subscribe to all of them in seconds!

Public Speaking Tip #109: The blogosphere has a wide range of constantly updated sites with tips from working speakers. Read at least some of these to add to to the knowledge already available to you from public speaking books/classes/clubs.

I really must recommend one blog in particular, Lisa Braithwaite's excellent Speak Schmeak.

Lisa's views on public speaking echo so many of my own and her (very) regularly updated blog is always a lively, interesting and useful read.

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But I know a man who can...

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Sun 13 Jan 2008 08:42 PM GMT

Cancelling my first booking of the year

It wasn't exactly the best Festive Season I've ever had - I spent nearly a week in bed with the flu! I'd had the persistent cough I've been mentioning since early December but by Christmas, it was even worse and I eventually developed a temperature of 103. Then I passed it on to my partner Val who doesn't normally catch these things. It was the New Year before we eventually opened our Christmas gifts!

My first booking of 2008 was for 3 January but there was no way I was going to be up to it so I had to cancel but I was at least pleased to be able to recommend a replacement, a new-ish speaker who had a coaching session with me last year. He is a wood carver who has some stunning examples of his work as visual aids and, as the talk was for a gardening club, he was perhaps rather more relevant to that audience than I would have been anyway.

Public Speaking Tip #108: I have mentioned before about networking with other speakers so you can recommend each other, cover cancellations, etc. It's even better if you know so many that you can recommend one whose subject matter will be of specific interest to a particular organisation.

He phoned me a few days later to say that it had gone well so it seemed to work out ok for all concerned.

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Thursday, January 3

The end justifies the moans

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Thu 03 Jan 2008 06:42 PM GMT

Suggested New Year's resolutions for anyone booking a speaker in 2008:

1. If you leave a message for a speaker you would like to book, bear in mind that there is a very good reason why they may not return your call immediately: they're busy speaking somewhere!

2. Do not get the speaker to agree a fee and expenses and then drop a bombshell, such as 'Oh, and you'll have to get a taxi from the station. It's only about twenty minutes!'

3. If you leave a reminder message as the date of the booking approaches, such as 'Don't bother to call me back unless there's a problem', do not then ring again in a panic saying 'You never returned my call!' Sometimes a speaker just can't conjure up a problem at such short notice!

4. Although you may think you're being terribly hospitable by greeting the speaker with 'Let me get you a drink and introduce our President, last year's President, the chap who sweeps the floors, the great-nephew of the architect who designed the venue', etc, etc, the second we arrive, try to bear in mind that sometimes what we'd actually like after several hours' travel is a quiet sit-down and to be shown where the nearest loo is!

5. Allow the speaker to set up before your business meeting starts. It's no good saying 'Oh, we'll finish the business, then you can get ready and then I'll introduce you'. What invariably happens is that the business ends, the speaker is immediately introduced anyway and this is followed by several awkward minutes with them trying to hurriedly prepare while a bored audience sits doing nothing. The momentum is lost and it's all so unnecessary.

6. When a speaker is setting up, do not nose around/interfere with their props; few things are more annoying! You'll find out what they all are soon enough - during the presentation.

7. Remember that a Speaker Host is not a Speaker Guard! At one talk, my 'host' followed me into the toilets and actually stood outside the cubicle door! I'm sure there are prisoners who leave courtrooms who are not as closely monitored as I was that day!

8. Introductions do not have to be too long or detailed but if you could come up with something slightly more substantial than 'Here is our speaker who I'm sure will be, er, very interesting' then precious time is not lost due to the speaker having to explain who on earth they are and what their subject is.

9. If you have forms which need signing, such as lists of names to be put down for excursions, do not pass them around during the presentation otherwise the speaker may consider going on a trip of their own...home.

10. It's lovely if you recommend us to some other group you belong to but ask yourself if it's really fair to demand a different subject simply because you have heard the material before - even though the other fifty people won't have done!

Public Speaking Tip #107: Most organisations look after the speakers they book really well but there may be occasions when you need to gently state your needs - always adding, of course, that this will make the speaking engagement more sucessful for all concerned.

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