73 – Be great on stage: Tom talks 30 Speaking Tips

Episode 073 – 30 Public and Professional Speaking Tips
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody it's I'm here with episode 73 of screw the commute podcast. This is gonna be 30 public and professional speaking tips. I hope you didn't miss episode 72. We had Raven Glover. She didn't fulfill her dream until she was 55 years old. Plus she got a presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. So don't miss her episode. All right our sponsor is the amazingPublicSpeaking.com website. Have you ever thought about getting paid to speak and you're not sure if you're really ready to invest in lots of training. Well I got the solution amazingPublicSpeaking.com has four hundred seventy five public and professional speaking techniques openings closings attention gaming devices humor and also the business of speaking and it's only 97 bucks for an entire year. Check it out at amazingpublicspeaking.com and of course we'll have that in the show notes.

[00:01:30] All right let's get to the main event. I'm going to give you 30 public and professional speaking tips and today's training will actually be the audio copy of a webinar I did that got lots of great reviews. And yes I know you won't be able to see the slides from the webinar but if you want to see them I'll have the link to the actual webinar in the show notes for this episode which is episode 73 and for all of our episodes you can go to screwthecommute.com slash and then the episode number which would be 73 for this one and also the sound quality won't be quite as good as the regular podcast but it won't be bad either. I just wanted to get this info out to you as fast as I could. So enjoy the webinar and I'll be back after it's done to close out the episode.

[00:02:25] Welcome everybody to the virtual studios of Antion & associates. I'm Tom Antion. I'll be your host. We're broadcasting tonight as always from the great internet marketing retreat center where people come in from all over the world to study internet marketing in the lap of luxury. We're going to zoom through some hot tips that are going to help you with your speaking both making more money and being great on stage which helps you make more money and get invited back over and over and over again. You can still tell your friends about this real quick get greatInternetmarketing.com/30tips tweet it Facebook share it. Anything you can do to help out. We appreciate or e-mail it to your friends now. One quick announcement selfie stupidity is now in beta testing so we invite everybody here to go to selfiestupidity.com and just look around see which I understand what you don't understand. Give me some feedback. I really appreciate it. You can sign up for a free account and upload selfies and just have a good old time over there. That's a user generated content site that we are developing for a while and we'd love to have your feedback so thank you very much. Selfie stupidity.

[00:03:49] So let's get rolling here now most of you know the plan. I've got an enormous reputation for giving great value and I'm never going to let you down on that ever but you can be darn sure I'm going to offer you something later to buy. But only after I totally deliver on my promise to give you 30 immediately usable speaking tips that I've used all over the world. Plus for those of you that stick to the end I got three genius techniques for those sticking with me all the way to the end. Our sponsor has amazing public speaking our membership site. It's got over a thousand easily implemented pro speaking tips and techniques I’ll tell you about it later.

[00:04:36] Now why should you listen to me. Well over three thousand paid presentations in 12 countries get around a little bit. The past present and national capital professional speakers association have the longest running speaking blog on the Internet the longest running speaker shop on the Internet. I've been asked to train other professional speakers at the National Speakers Association over a hundred times in the past twenty six years. I think that some kind of record.

[00:05:11] I'm usually the highest grossing speaker whenever I speak and most of the time or at least many times I make more than all the other ones put together. So and that's been going on for many years another reason I've got the largest ezine in the world on pro level speaking. I've spoken from barns to the nuclear regulatory commission boardroom not the same day that my was asked to critique President Bush on his speech to Congress. That's up on YouTube. You want to look at that and became consumer debt free somewhere around 17 years ago from a combination of speaking and internet marketing which you know they go hand in hand. Yeah you can do all the Internet stuff I teach. No problem and never speak to a soul. However you get really good at speaking. It totally accelerates your success online. Hit multimillionaire status around the year 2000. The developer of the wake em up video professional speaking system used by thousands of speakers around the world.

[00:06:23] Some of the things you're going to hear about today are what I refer to as attention gaining devices. That's what my wake em up speaking system is based on. It's why I always get the longest slot whenever I speak because the promoters know man if I'm up there the time is gonna fly by. People are wonder Oh you mean it's over by now. And it's not because I'm so brilliant it's because I act like a pro. I do the things necessary to get the job done. And I might use the system is based on 11 different attention gaining devices. I might use the same one 30 40 times in a presentation and you'll never know what hit you. If you learn how to do this stuff. So you'll see some of those as we go and many of my tips are against the conventional Toastmaster wisdom. I'm not going to get into my anti Toastmasters stories today. I mean I have a love hate relationship with them. But but they're not professional. They do a lot of stuff that was ancient one hundred years ago. And the stuff that works today is a whole different animal when got to be a professional and make money and makes the promoters happy and make that meeting planner happy and the people in the audience will you know eat their young.

[00:07:48] Yes. So you've got to be damn good. All right. Now another thing. Don't tell me cause some of these tips are so easy but don't tell me Oh I knew that already. Well if you did do you religiously do it every single time. Are you there the first speaker to get there the last one to leave. Double triple checking everything the logistics the audio visual. Well I do. And that's why when these other Divas walk in at the last minute and all their screws up I'm sitting there laughing because they get up half their time because they didn't take the time to come in and be a professional and then they blame it on their assistant. Well this is not a field where you you can blame things on people you're the one up there with the microphone. So get your butt and check every single detail. I'm just going to give you a fraction of them today. If you did them you'd be way better than You are now. organizers ask me all the time why are you down here so early. Well I don't want to screw up. I want to walk out of here with one hundred the two hundred thousand dollars. That's what I'm out here early. So. So these things are simple but there's tons of things that you could learn to make you way better and get you making big money getting invited back over and over.

[00:09:10] I mean some of the places I've spoken I've done it twice a year for 10 years 12 years straight. All right. They invite me back. In fact I speak speaking for Mark Victor Hansen before he closed down the mega seminars his meeting players said we can't help but have you back. Usually you have different speakers all the time. He says we can't help it. People are writing in 15s. On a scale of one to 10 on you. All right. I'm not saying to brag this folks it's because I I act like a pro and I do these kinds of things. Plus hundreds more religiously. I mean even I might have told stories hundreds of times the night before and the morning of I'm practicing the story in my hotel room kind of at a whisper I don't want to do it in my head I want my lips moving. Because you're your you know your lips don't always go where your mind is telling it so you need the practice out loud there's a spare tip for you right there.

[00:10:08] All right. Let's take on Speaker Tip number one voice care. Avoid shouting. Always make sure there's a microphone handy or bring your own. You can make up a portable sound system like I did for years when I was coming up through the ranks with a guitar amp and a wired handheld microphone for 50 bucks. OK so this start out so don't tell me you can't afford it but you always want to have a microphone and we're gonna do two other tips I think related to microphones later. And then here's the real important tip you need to know what everybody says well you should be hydrated when you speak in your vocal chords the hydrated right. Well you can't do it the day of. If you try to force down all this water the day of all you're going to be doing is peeing the whole day and on stage you're going to be you know shaking your knees together like a little 5 year old. All right. You must hydrate the day before.

[00:11:04] All right speaking tip number two audio visual requirements you need to put them on your Web site. You need to pass them on to the meeting planner and you need to double make that quadruple check before you get to the event. And when you get to the event because I might say I need a stereo mini plug off of my laptop because I'm playing sound I might need an HDMI cable or you know whatever it happens to be I need a six foot bank with table skirted and then that's why I'm down there check in and then it all works because I've been to 100 places literally a hundred or more that I told him all this and then they didn't have it. So have your own connectors if you have to but be a pro because you don't want to start out all sweaty and at the last second it's not working what you had planned.

[00:11:55] All right. Number three ask audience members in the pre program interviews that you do. Those of you that's checked in early got a pre-programmed questionnaire but ask him what funny has happened in their organization. And here's an example I had I was doing a big state employee event and all I did was read their newsletter ahead of time and I and I called this lady and she said the following. The reason the governor is building so many jails is so when state employees have to start committing armed robbery to make ends meet. He'll have someplace to put us. Okay so all I did was read that. Give her credit and the place went freaking bananas OK. Now I gave her credit but she gave me the material. I'm the big hero with this loud killer laughter and it's all gonna reflect on me. OK. So just ask him what's happening but be careful because so many people are so politically correct now so you know make sure you check your humor with two or three different people to make sure it's not a fence.

[00:13:08] OK number four use any special skills you have. Juggling karate musical instruments even if you suck at it like Jack Benny and Victor Borge made fortunes just you know pretending to be terrible with their instruments you can sing armpit fart whistle. Any of these things I even thought of one if you were really buff or a gymnast or something you could do a handstand. Put the microphone on the floor put some pictures of eyeballs and then lips on your shins and interview somebody upside that you know if you're really buff you could do legs or one legs squat one arm push up unicycles balancing spoons on your eye all this stuff very memorable but the thing is you've got to make a point with what you're doing. Just doing it to show people how great you are no good. You must make a point with it. That's a lot more deeper training but don't just do it the show.

[00:14:06] All right. Number five fake eye contact. OK this is real. This is if you get to be in a big theater. Well usually they have these enormous banks of lights hit you in the face and you cannot see past the third row so if you get sucked into the thing where you're only going to look at the people you can actually see all those thousands of other people are going to feel slighted. So you have to fake eye contact to different parts of the room. I'm gonna throw in a side tip here called eye mag thing that'll really drive you crazy and you really have to know that it's happening ahead of time and not react to it. Is eye mag is when you're projected on these enormous screens on the side. Well the people right up in front sometimes will like be trying to look past you to see you on the big screen. That's very disconcerting because you're right there in front of them and they're not looking at you. So so just be ready for that and don't react like what you don't like and get all nervous about but you got to do fake eye contact because you can't see.

[00:15:18] All right. Number Six here is this is a great tip how to be instantly more interesting. See a lot of people are very monotone. They've tried to rehearse and they're just trying desperately remember what to say and so they become monotone and that's terrible. So in general emphasize the adjectives and the verbs. Here's an example I've underlined three adjectives in one either verb or adverb. I don't know that. All right. Let me read it monotone. The large shiny gold coin was burning a hole in my pocket. All right that's what that's monitor statement. Here's how you you're interesting. The large emphasize right the large shiny gold coin was burning a hole in my pocket all right. You just do that in general. You're instantly going to be more interesting. Now if you are ready or really boisterous and interesting you know hope don't go overboard. All right. But if you have trouble with this we're being monotone. This is a way to get over. This is really good.

[00:16:31] All right. Number seven attention gaining and keeping device here. Here's one ask for the audience's help and keeping track with your handout. Now here's the thing I. I always have a hand out no matter where I speak. No matter how big small a crowd is the handout that I have a whole section in my training on heirloom handouts that's how you what you do to keep people from throwing your hand out away. There's certain tricks you can do but anyway always have a hand up which you do as you pick random people and ask them what's the next point in a handout. OK. And yell it out. Well people will be afraid to zone out because you might pick them next and then they're going to look foolish. All right. So it's very simple trick audience involvement but it forces attention on you. You don't want people slacking and zoning out and texting and everything you want. I'm riveted on you and this is just one of the little tricks techniques. OK.

[00:17:32] Speaking tip number eight don't step on your laughter you know I was a professional level comedian for six years before I started speaking. And this is a very common thing. We're right here. Let me get the point or I thing here right here. Let's say you said something funny and you got that lot of laughter and it peaked right here. Well if you start talking right here guess what happens to the laughter quits instantly. Right. So let the laughter start subsiding and don't start talking till down in this area while they're still laughing but it's fading away. This would be a place where you deliver what we call a topper line if you have a follow up funny line. And then it goes again. And then when it drops off you hit him with another top line. So don't step on your laughter because you kill it. Boom right there if you talk at their peak.

[00:18:30] All right. Number nine live demonstrations. If it's if you're doing something live that's based on the internet you darn well better have a backup internet source a jet pack. a MiFi your cell phone hooked to the Internet which you've tested in the room because I'll tell you what I've seen this a hundred times I get one hundred times the promoter. You tell him you need Internet in the room. No problem. And then the promoter gets there and the meeting. And the excuse me that the hotel people say was a four hundred fifty bucks for the day. The meeting planner and the promoter freaks out and says no we can't afford that. No we don't want it. And then you're screwed. OK. So if you're going to do something live by the way which I never ever ever do I always have Camtasia videos that I'm playing now if I know the video is working or the Internet's working I may jump to it maybe but I never plan on it. It's only if it's I'm up there it's working fine. And I don't want to give it a try and I got extra time. I'll do it but don't do it. And whatever you do should be heard rehearsed if it's possible in the room. I saw a guy do something with balloons one time and he was expecting a 30 foot high ceiling. He had an eight foot high ceiling and it just looks stupid. So you've got to rehearse your live demonstration in the room and have a backup plan in case everything goes to hell.

[00:20:05] Number 10 prize give away technique. There's hundreds of these you can find and trainer books and so forth but there's just some of the ones I do random ones where you can throw stuff in the crowd but I want you to put a big warning a big underline that and blood or something because I almost lost my career over a bunch people helping out during this big presentation threw stuff into the crowd and hit somebody in the eye tore their cornea. I was like for a couple of weeks wondering how am I going to have to leave town. So be careful with that. You know you can tape a business card under random seats I've done that creates a lot of chaos. I don't do that for a short time because takes too long to get them back. You could say who has the closest birth date that today knowledge base wins what's the origin. You know I asked him a question what's the origin of the phrase it's raining cats and dogs or something. Ask him something and maybe it's something they're supposed to know in the company that they're in. So get him to yell it out in case you want to know it's raining cats and dogs as in the old days people would keep their cats and dogs up in the thatched attic. And when it rained too hard the thatch couldn't hold the water and the dogs and cats would slip out of the ceiling. And that was where raining cats and dogs comes from.

[00:21:24] Number 11 Bumper car transitions I never do the old as the hills. Tell him what you're going to tell him tell him and then tell him what you told them. That is the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life and all you educational designers are out there gonna give me crap. I don't care. I'm the one that makes one hundred to two hundred thousand on stage. All right. So that's the dumbest thing and the reason why is because you can if you tell people everything that's coming they can think oh I can go the bathroom or go make some calls on that section because I already know that. Or you know they can zone out on here they say well I don't even want to hear about that. Well too bad you're here and you're gonna hear about it because you don't know it's coming and you're afraid. I want them to not know what's coming because they're afraid to leave or they'll miss something just like this webinar. You don't know what the next twenty nine tips are or 19 tips are so if you go to the bathroom you know you're going to miss five of them. That could make you a fortune. So you ain't going anywhere. All right. So don't do that. Yeah just hit. Just keep on. Now you might say well time you told us to give em a handout so they follow along. Yeah but I never said I'm gonna go right down the list did I. I might say hey I'll jump to page three and then boom. Now everybody's flipped out and they've got to go to page three and they say maybe we'll get back to page two. This is more important. They said they just because I have a hand that doesn't mean I'm going to follow. That drives a lot of anal people crazy. But again most of them don't spend any money.

[00:23:06] Okay. Number twelve referral fees if you want to make more money let people know you'll give me a referral fee for referring it simple as that. I pay 10 to 20 percent not counting back of the room sales but if it's a paid event. All right It's 10 percent. If you just give me a a lead and I got to go sell the job it's 20 percent. If you've already sold the job and you say hey call this people they're ready to book you I told them you're the greatest blah blah blah. They get 20 percent. Now here's a big red underline again. Don't put someone in an uncomfortable position because many people and corporations could get fired if they took a kickback for you coming in on their say so. So what you do is check around a little bit to see if that applies and if it does. Here's what you do. You say you know what I always am willing to contribute x amount of percentage to your company's favorite charity. If they have me in now you've got them off the hook. And you still go to the top of the heap because you're doing something good and giving back to charity and so forth.

[00:24:20] All right. Number 13. This is a term that I have coined. I never heard anybody else with this. And it's not even in my wake them up. I coined this in the past couple years memorable spectacles. These are things I do on stage that are just ungodly memorable. One is crime scene tape. I get a big roll a crime scene. Get a bunch of people on stage wrap it around them give them stuff to say. Have the audience scream it out. That's a crime. And and it's beautiful. And I get people asking me all the time you going to do the crime scene this time. I want to be in it dueling flip charts we're going to see that later air filled balloons. So don't use helium and do not let anybody suck helium. I had a balloon company entertainment company for six years. People dropped dead from that the helium replaces their lungs every time I see it on TV I write the network and tell them that's very very irresponsible. But anyway air filled balloons can be a great fireworks display because people can step on them and they boom you know and they're easy to pick up. So you don't get charged extra from the hotel you get one of your assistance to go and help pick them all up confetti cannons. They're great except make sure you use confetti that is paper not the glitter kind because the glitter they're going to charge you a fortune for cleaning paper will come right up in the sweeper. We used to sell those exploding microphones and stuff like that glow stars is now just glow sticks and things you do a room blackout and you know the chemicals give everybody one of these things they're dirt cheap if you buy them wholesale and then it lights up the room and on the stars I make the audience the stars do a room blackout. All right those are memorable spectacles.

[00:26:11] All right. This is just the tip this I've picked worst book cover I want you to write that down really fast boredpanda.com/worst-book-covers-and-titles. Now anytime you want to find some humor just put the word worst in front of anything and you'll come up with a whole crap load of stuff on the Internet and you pick the ones appropriate just read to the crowd pick ones that make sense for that crowd you know worst accounting mistakes you can even do it for accountants you know so I'm sure you can find stuff on just about everything. This is just one out of the 30 or 40 ways I develop custom humor for a crowd so just put worst. But now a lot of the ones you're going to see there are too dirty to use you have to make sure you're you don't use ones that are too dirty in a corporate environment I can get away more in a wild boisterous public invite a public seminar but you just gotta be careful okay.

[00:27:17] Number 15 funny headlines this is another way to get humor. Here's some that I just typed in funny headlines. Weight Watchers representative shoplifts cupcakes homicide victims rarely talk to police. These are real Utah poison control center reminds people not to take poison. I was worried I was wondered about. I was thinking about taking some poison the other day I'm glad I read it. Most earthquake damage caused by shaking. Federal agents raid gun shop. Find weapons. Statistics show teen pregnancy drops off significantly after age 25 somebody on deadline Put that out there is suffering for the rest of their career that they wrote a stupid thing like that. This is a real one man eats his underwear to beat a breathalyzer test. So anyway funny headlines. And notice how you know I genuinely am laughing along with the audience and when they see you're having fun it makes more laughter in the audience. We learn all that in my my you know make them laugh course but I generally am having a good time up there and one of the reasons is because I took care of all the logistic details so carefully. I'm not worried about things breaking all the time.

[00:28:44] Here's the dueling flip charts. This is where this is one of the spectacles memorable spectacles. You put a flip chart on each side the stage you're standing in the middle running the whole deal you get volunteers from the audience and then it's any time you have like a yin yang type thing or a good sales technique bad sales technique and people yelling from the crowd and the people on stage are writing them down on the flip chart and then you give them some prizes for helping you out after you're done. Very very cute thing and every place has two flip charts and you can make that happen. A big spectacle and there's no expense to it. No nothing. And it can't fail because the flip charts aren't going to break on ya Unless the pen doesn't write which you should have checked by the way before you put them up there. Hey here's a spare tip. If you're just using a flip chart for yourself. Write very lightly in pencil. What are you supposed to say when you walk over there you can see the pencil. But the audience can't and it reminds you what to say. There's a spare one.

[00:29:47] 17 yes you can turn your back to the audience that's another dumb Toastmaster thing. Don't turn your back to the audience. Yes you turn your back to the audience. Here's an example. A lot of times I'll have a crowd discuss something among themselves. Here's a spare bonus humor line you can use. I say OK we're going to discuss something once you get a partner I want you to look a person there's a person sitting on your right. The person sitting on your left. Pick the one that looks the most intelligent and pair up with that person. They just burst out laughing at that line and then I'll say you sitting on the end you've got a choice of that person next to you or the wall. So use that one. That's a great one I've used for one hundred years but still people laugh like hell. But as soon as I say that I say don't do it yet. All right on three One two three now and then I turn my back and I walk to the back of the stage because now they're supposed to be doing stuff. So yes you can turn your back when I come back around and I blow a buzzer or something that's when they're supposed to straighten up.

[00:30:53] All right 18 this will make you a lot more money. Not every time but sometimes if you have products on your speakers agreement you write educational materials available to compliment this presentation. Many times the meeting planner has a separate budget that they have to spend on their members or their employees. So it's just you want to make it easy on them to give the money to you. And so I might when I was just selling years and years ago when I was just selling my wake em up book. It was twenty four dollars book I'd sell it to him half price for twelve something and they'd buy one hundred or one time there was five hundred in the audience. And another here's a spare trick write it down fast along with my speaking fee they got one hundred books included in the deal and there's a whole thing of negotiating you can do around doing that. That tip but several times people said to me Well Tom there's five hundred in the audience can we buy 400 more books by way of it. Let me let me think. I'm not sure that I really want it. Yes. And that was another forty eight hundred dollars at the time that doubled my speaking fee. All right from a separate budget say from the meeting planner. So that's that's a good one to put in there.

[00:32:16] 19 speak at fundraisers. So as you've been around me know that I have a whole course on this. There is the link to it. You're crazy if you don't do this I don't care what level Speaker you are. This is a way to get speaking engagements where you make a lot of money where the organizing group makes a lot of money and there's virtually zero competition. This is how I start everybody out doing fundraisers so speak at fundraisers the gist of the thing is you present a seminar where the group that's raising money has sold tickets to their members who love them already and buy tickets just not you know they want to hear your presentation but they might just buy tickets to support the group and you split the money and then you give them 10 percent of your product sales plus you're building your mailing list by sometimes hundreds at a time from people that have seen you speak. This is one of the greatest things I ever developed. You're crazy if you don't get it. Greatinternetmarketing.com/fundraisers. Check it out.

[00:33:21] All right. Number 20 this is a to keep you out of trouble. I call it touched by an angel but more likely touched by a perv. And I do not want you doing this stupid ridiculous massage the person next to you stuff. This is just asking for trouble. A big name speaker you've all heard his name I'm not going to mention it ran up to me desperate. I'm speaking at his event. And Tom what do I do. Holy crap. Oh my God. I'm going to get sued. Some guy was you know they were massaging the shoulders from behind and he was kind of rubbing his loins against the girls butt but holy you know you are crazy is is politically correct and this is you know people were just out waiting to be offended out there and you're going to be the one that's the brunt of it. You'll get fired from the job you'll get never asked back if they get some kind of complaint like that because you still you know you made this happen. The company is not going to take the blame. They'