Nick R Thomas - A Public Speaker's Blog

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Saturday, May 30

Audiences - a public speaker's great resource

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Sat 30 May 2009 04:29 PM BST

Bournemouth 2 Probus

Making yourself available to speak at short notice can sometimes make a quiet month for bookings at least a little busier. Last month it boosted my engagements by 50%! Just before the meeting began at Barton on Sea Probus, I got a call from a fellow speaker who had to cancel a booking the next day due to a family crisis.

If I cover for another speaker, I always ask them to contact the organisation themselves to let them know that a replacement speaker will be coming along with a different topic. I knew this one would be a bit of a challenge; although Bournemouth 2 Probus is a club that I have enjoyed speaking to on three previous occasions, I knew they would have been greatly looking forward to hearing the other speaker and his very popular and humorous topic so I had a lot to live up to!

My topic was The Power of Humour in Everyday Life and I put a collection of material together which they would not have heard before. (I spoke to them on My Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer in May 2000, Patrick Campbell in October 2005 and Groucho Marx in May 2008 so it had been the best part of a decade since they had heard any of my own personal anecdotes).

I was pretty happy with my material but on the way to the Grange Hotel, I considered the last-minute inclusion of a recording of one of my radio comedy sketches played on a dictaphone, as I had done very effectively with Blackmore Vale Probus last year. But when I tested this for volume in the small meeting room at the hotel, I found that the tape was nowhere near audible enough due to all the sound-absorbent upholstery.

Public Speaking Tip #313: There are many factors which can effect the acoustics of a room: size, height of ceiling, wall and floor coverings, etc. Try to get a feel for the place before you speak and note how the speakers before you are coping (or failing to!)

It didn't matter as it turned out that I had plenty of content, especially when taking into account the amount of laughter. After another of Bournemouth 2 Probus's wonderfully humorous business meetings, I was introduced to the audience of 53 members and guests and this one turned out to be a bit of a tour de force! The observations and anecdotes got a great response, including the new 'hazards of puns' story which I had been honing over the previous couple of months but had not used at a men's Probus before.

The talk was interrupted at one point by a gentleman falling off his seat! After making sure that he was uninjured, I pointed out that my talk wasn't actually about slapstick. He replied that he was nearly in stitches, which got an even bigger laugh and applause. It was a great ad-lib and I wasn't going to try and top that - one of those unscheduled real-life comedy moments that add even more to a humorous presentation.

The question and answer session was incredibly wide-ranging, dealing with topics from comedy past and present to copyright and pop music royalties, all subjects which I fortunately knew something about!

Afterwards, I got a fantastic vote of thanks and then enjoyed a very nice lunch with the club, during which I chatted with one of the guests, Major Peter Mylechreest from the Boscombe Salvation Army.

He was fascinating to speak to. One of the great 'windfall gains' of public speaking is that you get to meet and converse with people who have led incredibly interesting lives, people who you would probably otherwise never encounter. I have found myself at luncheons and dinners where I have been seated on tables with a former Governor of Bermuda, a retired senior Murder Squad detective, Mayors, doctors, authors, charity workers, highly successful business people...

They help me improve my grasp of a number of topics, including current affairs, by receiving informed opinion from experts.

Sometimes I receive useful advice, not as a result of pestering someone once I have found out what they do, but from something which has come up in conversation. Thus, I have had informal but very useful financial advice and even a valuation of a stamp collection (unfortunately it's not valuable at all!)

My talks have also benefitted. For example, my Patrick Campbell presentation now includes several anecdotes from people I have met at my speaking engagements who actually had dealings with him, details which I could never have found in any book. Audience members can be a great resource for a speaker's ongoing research.

Sadly, sometimes I only discover who someone was after the event. One Past Rotarian who booked me for a talk rang up and modestly said 'My name's Holland...' He was actually Sir Kenneth Holland, CBE, who had been Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire Services in England and Wales.

They're not all high-profile professionals, of course, but so many still have a fascinating story to tell. Imagine the thrill when, after a WI talk in the New Forest some years ago, a lady told me that her grandmother had once heard a very interesting speaker: Charles Dickens delivering one of his readings!

Public Speaking Tip #314: Public speaking enables you to rub shoulders with interesting and well-informed people; both your general knowledge and sometimes even your speech content can be greatly enriched as a result.

There are so many benefits to be gained from becoming a speaker: improved confidence, extra income, a higher profile for yourself, your business or your cause... This list must also include the opportunity to meet - and learn from - people you would normally never get to speak to.

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Friday, May 29

It's not all in the details...

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Fri 29 May 2009 11:03 AM BST

Detailed reports of presentations

A write-up about my last talk to Barton on Sea Probus appeared a couple of weeks later in the New Milton Advertiser/Lymington Times and reproduced part of its content in some detail.

This has happened before on odd occasions with reports from other clubs. I'm sure some speakers might see a problem with this, perhaps thinking that giving away so much material will suppress the number of bookings. Why bother to hear this speaker when thousands of people have already seen a summary of their talk in the local paper?

I disagree. I have never noticed any downturn in bookings after a detailed press report. For a start, the article will only be a few hundred words long whereas a 40-minute lecture might consist of nearly 5,000 so it will only be able to touch on a fraction of the facts, anecdotes, jokes, etc, that I have included.

If you think about it, such a report is a testament to the amount of preparation and research you have put into your content and the fact that a press officer has been able to write a clear synopsis demonstrates the clarity with which you put it across.

There are writers who publish books of tens of thousands of words on a subject who are then asked, as a result, to deliver condensed versions of them at speaking engagements, despite having made much more information available to readers than listeners.

Public Speaking Tip #312: If you are fortunate enough to have a very detailed report about your presentation published in a newspaper or magazine, you should view this as good advertising for you. It's a taster - not a free ride!

Of course, much depends upon the accuracy of the press officer's note-taking. In the case of Barton Probus it was excellent but some years ago, I delivered a talk to a particular organisation in Bournemouth and was stunned at the report which appeared afterwards (thankfully only in their small-circulation newsletter). There were so many inaccuracies and what I can only describe as invented details that I couldn't help wondering whether speaker and reporter had been attending the same talk!

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Monday, May 25

Commercial success

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Mon 25 May 2009 11:59 PM BST

Barton on Sea Probus

On 22 April, I had my fourth booking for Barton on Sea Probus in Hampshire. The previous three were mixed events held at Shorefield but this was a men-only meeting at Hoburne Naish.

My subject this time was The One, the Only...Groucho!, a talk I had not delivered for several months, and I had been itching to include a new reference.

There is a commercial on television in the UK which few viewers can have missed seeing! It warns about identity theft and features a man trying on a jacket in an outfitter's. When he looks in the mirror, he sees not his own reflection but that of a younger con-man who has stolen his ID. He goes through a series of movements which the wide boy imitates, moves which are taken directly from the famous 'mirror scene' in the Marx Brothers' classic 1933 movie Duck Soup (although this routine had also been previously used by Charlie Chaplin and has also been a staple of the best traditional British pantomimes for decades).

I mentioned this in the section towards the end of this presentation where I discuss the Marx Brothers' legacy.

Adverts quickly become irritating but their repetition does mean that they are recognisable to an audience.

Public Speaking Tip #311: Is there some recent reference from current affairs, popular culture or advertising which you can use to illustrate a point in your presentation?

The men-only nature of the meeting meant that I was also able to include some of Groucho's more risque quotations!

There were 44 members attending and after the well-received talk, I chatted to members and then enjoyed lunch where our table was entertained by anecdotes from an amazingly sprightly nonegenarian!

My thanks to Barton Probus member and fellow speaker Don Chipchase for the lift back into Highcliffe.

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