Making Public Speaking FUN! Part 6
All right, it’s time to unveil a few more ways that you can add pizazz and snap-crackle-pop to your presentations or speeches. Thanks again to HelpAReporter.com, which is where these responses came from.
First, how about asking your audience to (briefly) becoming a movie star? From Amy Dorn Kopelan at TheGuruNation.com:
I love your inquiry!
I am the Co-Creator of The Guru Nation, and I speak all over the United States and Canada encouraging emerging leaders to present with confidence and never abandon control of their careers.
Two fun things that always work:
Act out a scene from a hot movie! When you hand out a script from a film that almost everyone has seen and secretly wanted to star in, you get great response and participation from the audience. As a speaker, I make a lasting impression and my audience wants to hear more from me. I direct the scene and make sure I have stars. As a session with impact, it rocks. No one forgets what I teach!
Organize “show and tell” for the audience. When you want to demonstrate the way attire and personal accessories tell a story about someone or send key messages, you can best bring it to life by a public game of Show and Tell. Everyone in your audience pays attention. Everyone is waiting for their turn.
Everyone is at the ready to be critiqued. No one forgets what they hear about themselves.
Next, do you feel as if you are giving a speech at an early-morning breakfast meeting and want to connect with the folks in your audience who aren’t awake yet?
Do what Laurie Cameron, “Evolutionary Relationship” Expert does (http://www.LaurieCameron.com):
My topics always have something to do with “WAKING UP” – being more conscious of our thoughts, words and actions. I often talk about how we’re sleepwalking and “sleepworking.”
So I usually walk out on stage in a robe (over my biz clothes, of course!), wearing Bugs Bunny slippers.
As I get to the point of using my Rock and Roll Chicken alarm clock, I take the robe off, but leave the slippers on for the rest of the presentation.
This is definitely memorable for people. Six months after I did one at a networking event, a woman in a restaurant bathroom recognized me and remembered me by my bunny slippers!
And it’s the most acceptable way I know of to be able to wear slippers instead of dress shoes for a presentation.
Here’s a great way to involve your audience by using technology. Instead of trying to have folks turn off their cell phones, use them to your advantage! Alan Stevens offer these ideas:
I’m VP of the International Federation for Professional Speakers, as well as being a pro speaker and media coach.
I love to have fun while I’m speaking
Two ways:
1) I give the audience my mobile phone number at the start of the speech, and ask them to text any comments or questions, which I then go through at the end. People are much happier to ask questions and make remarks this way. Fun too.
2) I always get people involved in an exercise as early as possible – maybe reading a story from the newspapers in different character voices. Getting them having fun between themselves for a few minutes really lightens the atmosphere.
Patricia A. Farrell, Ph.D. of www.drfarrell.net looks to get her audience to try something they do not normally do:
I always use the ice breaker by telling the audience that I want them to “wiggle your ears.” They look at me as though I’ve got two heads and then I demonstrate that I can do it and I tell them that they can, too, but it takes work just like the communication techniques I’m going to teach them. I tell them to go back to their homes or hotel rooms and practice, practice, practice because that’s how you learn anything that doesn’t come naturally to you.
Elaine Ambrose of Eagle, Idaho (www.elaineambrose.com) goes into the prop bag:
I use props and prizes to entertain and humor my audiences. For example, I hand out a small prize for a risk-taker and then a bigger prize for a bigger risk-taker. Hence, the bigger the risk, the bigger the prize. I also call a dozen people up for a “corporate choir.” I hand out kazoos, tambourines, whistles and drums that I buy at discount stores. Then we preform a round that I write about the company that sponsored the speech. Everyone has a ball! Another technique is to have a “goody bag” and pull out funny props that I link to strategic business examples. For example, I pull out a compass and explain the importance of knowing what direction to take.
Got an idea to share that will help make some speech fun for someone else? Drop us a note here at Communication Steroids – or leave a comment.
WEBSITE: http://www.LaurieCameron.com
BLOG: http://todayichooselove.com
BOOK: http://www.TheJourneyFromFearToLove.com
GIVING BACK: http://www.TheFearToLoveProject.com
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