Wessex Women's Network

There are some bookings that a speaker really looks forward to and I was delighted to be asked to speak once again at the Wessex Women's Network in Brockenhurst. My last presentation for them was in October 2004, when The Power of Humour in Business was very well received.

This time the topic was Public Speaking = the Triumph of Technique Over Terror!

So, on Tuesday evening of last week, I made my way from Brockenhurst station to the Cloud Hotel, which is on the outskirts of this New Forest village. The lanes had no pavements in places and were also unlit, convincing me that a larger torch might be an essential for future evening engagements!

Public Speaking Tip #143: When choosing what to take along with you to a speaking engagement, don't just consider items that you will need for the presentation itself but also anything that might be needed for the journey. It all helps to make the occasion run more smoothly.

The format for these meetings has changed since I last spoke there; the events now take place on a Tuesday instead of a Thursday and the presentation is followed by an excellent three-course dinner.

The award-winning hotel is hugely popular and was full, even in February, so the meeting was moved to a cosy room and the numbers limited to 30.

I had to decide where I would speak from without my being virtually on top of the audience or them having to sit awkwardly to see me. In the end, we settled on the end of the room near the doors.

Public Speaking Tip #144: Although there are some settings, particularly large venues where stages or fixed microphones or lecterns are concerned, where the speaker is required to work from a  designated part of the room, for other engagements you should choose where you think will the most comfortable for everyone.

For example, if you are speaking at a lunch or dinner, you do not have to speak from your place at the table. Choose a point in the room where you can be seen without being obscured for some by pillars or the audience having to crane their necks. You may have too many props to put down amongst the water glasses, coffee cups and used serviettes. You also may not want the diners either side of you reading your notes!

Just don't situate yourself too far away from the nearest audience members for all intimacy to be lost.The members of this group are all businesswomen based in the New Forest. Public Speaking is obviously a massive topic but I chose the subject areas which I felt would be of most relevance to them, illustrated in many cases with anecdotes - but short ones because I had so much material to put across while still leaving time for questions.

I made sure everyone had handouts in front of them before my presentation, including my basic Twelve Tips for Terrified Speakers!

For my notes covering this 50-odd minutes of material, I was using a piece of stiff, white A4 card folded in half and then in half again to give 8 small pages, each with single words or phrases as reminders of the various topics (which, after teaching Presentation Skills for so many years, I know well enough not to need more detailed notes). I got this tip years ago from a book by the award-winning after dinner speaker Stuart Turner (it's in my amazon store on this site) and it has stood me in good stead for more than a decade.

Public Speaking Tip #145: If you are giving a longer presentation, perhaps involving more information than you can fit onto a Mind Map, use a sheet of A4 card folded in half twice to form 8 small pages which you should number. There are numerous advantages to this:

1) It is highly portable and can be slipped inside a jacket pocket and carried with you everywhere, making extra revision or last-minute additions very easy.

2) It is difficult to lose your place, unlike with individual cards which can be turned over two at once.

3) If you drop your notes, you only have to pick up one sheet - unlike postcards which can go all over the place!

4) If you are using one hand to hold a microphone or prop, you can turn over the 'pages' using your thumb (this is why stiff card is a better idea for this than flimsy paper).

5) You can devote individual pages to particular topics, thus making your notes even easier to construct and then follow.

I was introduced by Jan Hoy OBE, who I'd last seen when I spoke at Hythe and District Inner Wheel last October, and the talk went very well. There was an interesting question afterwards from a lady who was nervous about using humour in public speaking. I pointed out that humour isn't just telling jokes but can be asides, observations, self-effacing anecdotes and quotations. Then I got one of those realisations of something seemingly obvious that had, nevertheless, not occurred to me before - despite the length of time I'd been doing this. I told her that I thought quotations were, perhaps, the safest form of humour to use because if you choose one from a well-loved public figure, just by mentioning their name, your audience is automatically primed that what follows will be funny. So that gives me...

Public Speaking Tip #146: Of all the types of humour that you could employ in a presentation, quotations could be your best bet (provided you select ones that aren't too over-used!)

Simply mentioning that what follows comes from Groucho Marx or Dorothy Parker almost guarantees a good response before the audience has even heard the saying itself!

The talk seemed to make a great impression at this club which has had some very high-profile speakers over the years. Jan Hoy echoed my belief in the enormous value of Mind Maps for speakers.There was one very interesting revelation from this presentation: I had pointed out that I am a very shy person and that although I had learned long ago to overcome my fear of public speaking, I still hated parties and also found 'working the room' at networking events extremely difficult. I'm fine to get up in front of a large group of strangers and speak for any length of time after an introduction as a speaker but approaching even tiny groups of people who I don't know seems very difficult to me in other settings. I was amazed how many of these highly successful businesswomen said afterwards that they were exactly the same!

Public Speaking Tip #147: Even the most introverted person can learn to be a successful public speaker - whatever the challenges they face in other areas of their careers/social lives.

The dinner was excellent and before I left, I chatted with Avril Owton MBE, owner of the hotel and founder of the Wessex Women's Network. Hers is a fascinating story: she was a Tiller Girl who married a hotelier. When her husband died without leaving any life or mortgage insurance, she found herself a mother of four children faced with the challenge of running the hotel, something she knew little about. Rather than sell up, she threw herself into this task and the Cloud Hotel is now hugely successful and Avril has won numerous awards, including the Shine Awards Woman of the Year in 2006. She is also the Chair of her local branch of the Institute of Directors and a highly respected and inspirational speaker who has raised many thousands of pounds for Macmillan Cancer Support.She has recently written a book, Delighting Your Customers: Delivering Excellent Customer Service Without Breaking the Bank, and it is selling very well (I own a copy myself!) She passes on valuable insights from running her successful hotel which can be applied to any business.