This blog by Pete Miller, Professional Public Speaking Coach, Speaker and MC covers Speaking & Selling on Stage, Presentation Skills, Master of Ceremonies, Vocal Power, how to persuade the audience to like you and buy from you.
Apr 30th, 2008 by Pete Miller
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Pete a professional public speaking coach gives a public speaking tip on looking at communication as an art form
Apr 25th, 2008 by Pete Miller
Pete, a public speaking coach talks about how he deals with clients when they have a fear of public speaking
Apr 21st, 2008 by Pete Miller
One of the best public speaking tips I can give as a public speaking coach is to learn from an Actor. An Actor has studied communication and acting is one of the oldest forms of communication. It has been studied as a communicative art for two or three thousand years
The Greeks and the Romans were beautiful communicators. They had the ability to stand in a large open air auditorium and communicate. They had no lights, no stage, no PowerPoint slides and no microphones. They had to contend with elements such as wind or rain, but they could still make 3000 people cry. Not too many people have communication skills like that these days.
I went to acting school to learn to be an actor. I studied acting for three years. In the very first week of the course we studied the Greeks and Romans. We studied this for a few months. Those few months changed how I communicate today. I was amazed at how well the Greek and Romans communicated.
From that first year in acting school I knew that I wanted to communicate this to the rest of the world. So be selective who you get the public speaking advice from. Look at the person’s background and question if they have learned the art of communication.
While I have many public speaking tips that I give my clients as a professional public speaking coach, one of the best public speaking tips I can give you is learn from the actors as they understand the art of communication.
Apr 21st, 2008 by Pete Miller
Pete, a professional public speaking coach explains the origin of the fear of public speaking
Apr 18th, 2008 by Pete Miller
I am a professional public speaking coach and I still get nervous before public speaking but it is totally different to a fear of public speaking. People sometimes confuse nerves as a fear of public speaking and think being nervous is bad thing but I think nerves are good.
When you have an interview or go on a date you are nervous and that is to be expected. You are nervous as there is a lot at stake and public speaking is no different.
The thing that you should be nervous about is wasting the audiences time. This is the biggest crime you can commit to another person is to waste their time. A public speaker has got a responsibility. If there is ten people in the audience and you are on the stage for an hour, then that’s ten hours you are responsible plus your own. If it’s a hundred people, it’s a hundred hours and so on. The people in the room won’t get that time back so there is a lot riding on you.
A speakers only concern should be the audience. It is not about me when I am speaking it is about the audience I am delivering the speech to. To overcome the nerves this is what you should be focusing on. Most of the people I work with quickly get over their nerves when they start to concentrate on the audience.
All these nerves are caused by you putting expectations on yourself. Try putting the expectations on what you are delivering to the audience. This will help you concentrate on what we are delivering.
I always tell my clients that I coach on public speaking that it is self-indulgent to worry about their own nerves when they are delivering to 100 or so people. I think this is a really important public speaking tip. Let go of any perceptions that you have on nerves or the fear of public speaking and just concentrate on your audience.
Apr 17th, 2008 by Pete Miller
As a professional public speaking coach I have looked into the origin of the fear of public speaking. The origin of the fear of public speaking comes from the Book of Lists. This book was published in 1972. The Guardian newspaper had picked up this book and said, “Oh. Listen to this. How about this? the Book of Lists says that the fear of public speaking is greater than death”.
The source of this list, no one knows. Some journalist in some office somewhere in London has come up with it, but there was never any source given. So no one really knows where this survey was done.
With more than thirty years since that was published, I think we’ve got over it a little bit. But it’s constantly brought up and as a professional public speaker and coach I should come across this on a daily basis if it was such an issue.
I think this Book of Lists statistic on fear of public speaking above death is silly concept and I have noticed as a professional public speaking coach that as a society we have moved on from this.
Apr 17th, 2008 by Pete Miller
I believe that a blog should be controversial and of course always interesting and I think that you will find my take as a professional public speaking coach on the fear of public speaking fulfils both criteria.
I have noticed through the Google alerts that I receive that the topic of the fear of public speaking is featured in about 90% of the posts on public speaking. Obviously this is on the minds of people.
What I find strange is that as a professional public speaking coach, and I have been doing this for almost 15 years, that it is very rare that I came up against this fear of public speaking. I can think of one case in my 15 years as a coach. Her fear of public speaking was definitely caused by an incident where a teacher at school had told her to sit down and shut up, and she took it on board. She had risen very high in her career because she’s very good at what she does. Due to this she kept getting asked to speak at functions. And she did a couple, and she felt terrible, and she said, “Pete, you have to help me,”. I just dug a little bit deeper and found out within a couple of minutes what it was and we wrote that teacher a letter. A metaphorical letter if you like, we didn’t actually write it and post it, but I said, “What would you say to this teacher if you could see her now.” She said, “This, this and this,” and it was all gone. So this issue about fear of public speaking, if it is an issue, it’s a very insignificant issue. It’s very small. And anybody who knows anything about public speaking will realize that it should be not be made into a bigger issue than it is.
I dispute that this fear of public speaking exists as I think that as a professional public speaking coach I should come across this a lot more often if it was a major issue.
Apr 15th, 2008 by Pete Miller
A public speaking tip that’ll help you a lot is to understand the difference between a speaker and an MC.
The difference is that the speaker doesn’t necessarily have to be organised; but the MC definitely does.
You can be a totally disorganised speaker and still perform well – as long as you finish on time. The main problem or mistake that most speakers make is NOT finish on time (or rush the important call to action) because they lack technique.
(I teach the fishbone technique – it guarantees that you will finish on time. Absolutely. So that’s all the speaker needs to do).
The MC needs to bring a whole organisational skill – like a secretary if you like – to the whole event. I wrote a book called UP FRONT IN CONTROL about the many different hats that an MC uses; because there are so many different jobs that an MC does.
This is a housekeeper, first and foremost, that’s what they say ‘let’s do some housekeeping’, they keep the house nice and orderly, they point out the restrooms over there (don’t call them toilets; it’s just a courtesy – it’s like being well mannered).
An MC is an expert at brevity. A speaker might have two minutes to tell a joke, but an MC has a mere fifteen seconds to tell the same joke.
Get the information across in a very brief manner (I hope I’m not waffling on here, I hope I’m being brief and an expert at brevity by giving you this information).
An MC needs to be an entertainer. An actor. So, if something’s going wrong, no-one will know: ‘no, it’s fine, it’s absolutely okay – everything is right on time and going great’.
You need to have a confident manner – even if you don’t feel confident.
Most people expect an MC to be, in a way, a comedian. Not a stand-up comedian, but have an attitude of fun in a way, or even just telling a one-liner. I’ve been telling that one-liner just recently about John Howard and now he’s retired he’s just going back to his old job as Mr Sheen! It gets a laugh every time. So, you tick the box off saying ‘cool, this MC’s got a sense of humour’.
You’ve got to be a motivator. ‘So come on guys, I know it’s a long day but we’ve got a fabulous party lined up tonight ….‘
So far – let’s look at the hats that an MC wears: Housekeeper, communicator, entertainer, actor, comedian, motivator…you’ve also got to be a leader. So you’re taking these people on a trip, you’re the leader for the three days, for the one day, for the evening, you’re their leader and they’re going to listen to you.
An MC is an arbiter of style – with the way you dress expresses the attitude you’ve got towards the whole event.
You’re a program link or you’re a mood changer, you change the mood, ‘okay, well that was fantastic and funny comedy, but now it’s awards time and awards, many people have struggled….’ and you go from comedy to, not a serious awards nights, but a different kind of feel.
You need to be a journalist or researcher and most of the MC’s work is done before they get on stage. You don’t wait until you get on stage to do all your research, it’s all done beforehand.
You’re an on-stage interviewer. That’s a different kind of hat, so you’re like a facilitator on stage. What I particularly do with awards night is I interview the person who’s just won the award. They always make dreadful speeches when they come up on stage ‘oh, I didn’t know I was going to win, I haven’t really prepared’ so then they pull out this paper and ‘I’ve just written a few things down’ and it’s all thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you is a very boring speech. So, I’ll say ‘what made you win this award as opposed to all the other people in this room’ and things like that.
They need to be a fireman. If there’s a problem, they need to be able to put it out quickly.
They need to have good public speaking skills such as a good voice.
They need to have good self-esteem.
A facilitator or moderator. If you’ve got two public speakers or a number of different people on a panel, often the MC will moderate the panel.
You need to be a conductor. All the event can’t be all funny or all serious. You need to conduct it towards the end. There’s an old theatrical saying ‘leave them wanting more’, you always leave them wanting more – you don’t ever have them watching the time wishing it would finish so they can go home!
You need to be a salesman. The MC is selling the event, selling the theme of the event or the organisers.
You need to be a diplomat. You need to be tactful if there’s a boring speaker whose just had sixty slides in about twenty minutes! You can’t say ‘wasn’t that wonderful’, but you need to be able to give some appropriate comment that doesn’t reduce your credibility and doesn’t make the speaker feel like the terrible speaker that he was.
So let’s just go through that list. There’s housekeeper, communicator, entertainer, comedian, motivator, leader, arbiter of style, program link or mood changer, journalist/researcher, onstage interviewer, fireman, public speaker, facilitator or moderator, conductor, salesman and diplomat. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of hats.
You might say ‘why, why do you have to wear all those hats?’ The MC is very satisfying and it’s a great way to raise your profile. If you can MC the industry convention or conference or the awards night, you are held in high esteem and your career will take off. That’s absolutely guaranteed, I’ve seen it too many times for it not to be true.
So all these public speaking tips are in my book UP FRONT IN CONTROL which has now gone from a book to a training course. It takes you through all the tips that you need to be as an MC.
Apr 1st, 2008 by Pete Miller
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