Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum Tools

Save Money With the 5 Key Points

Save Money With the 5 Janet Schlarbaum Key Points Author: Glyn Powditch

If you are booking a keynote speaker, then follow the 7 key points in this article. It will save you up to 20% of the fee you would have been charged by going to a bureau. The bureaus offer little benefits for their expensive charges and its easy to gain the small benefit of their experience by just calling them and asking their advice for free. With videos now on every professional speaker’s website, anyone can judge the quality and appropriateness of a specific speaker. Follow these 5 tips and you will be assured of a positive experience at your event:

1) “Try before you buy” – Only book speakers with a show reel on their website, Youtube or another video channel.

Its simple, good practice to have seen a speaker in action before you book them for an event. You are personally responsible for the success of your event, function, or conference. A video will allow you to not only judge the competence and likely impact of a speaker upon your audience but will also enable judgment as to the appropriateness of the speaker to the event.

Many speakers, even of poor quality, feature a show reel on their website. Therefore you can quickly eliminate speakers that are not up to scratch. Are the audience engaged? If they are out of shot, could it be staged? Any professional speaker will have countless performances at live events and should have no reason to “can laughter” or fakery. And if they don’t have a show reel, don’t book them.

Also examine what are their typical subject areas? Their videos should give a good guide and don’t expect them to deviate too much from their areas of expertise. If you want an HR speaker, look for one rather than a business speaker. Like comedians, many speakers rarely stray from the same stories. They will tend to try and mold the subject to their material which is not ideal for you. Therefore, I would urge you to really think about who you want.

2) Don’t book “celebrities” for business events unless…..

you can think of a really good reason to do so – and I can’t! I almost always hear that celebrities speeches go down like lead balloons at business conferences and events. Why? Well firstly a lot, and I mean a lot, turn up half cut. And this is whether we are talking big current names, sports stars, or c-listers and even those with tea-total reputations and bastions of health seem to succumb. Nerves, enjoying hospitality, or just part of a wider problem, consumption of alcohol affects speaking performance and audience enjoyment. Secondly, they are not speakers and whilst some are obviously good, a lot of them are not. Thirdly, you pay through the roof for them on multiples that are just absurd for the initial excitement of the audience as their name is announced before the typically crashing disappointment that follows when they open their mouths. Many toastmaster level speakers are much better and that’s not saying much.

3) Pick the brains of the bureau’s but don’t use them

Bureau’s are so expensive and do nothing to ensure you get the right speaker relative to their exorbitant fee. So by all means I recommend that you give them a call, ask for recommendations on speakers, and budgets and glean whatever valuable information that you can. If you do get a name, go direct. Any speaker worth their salt will have a website that is easy to find. You can even bypass management companies by going to Facebook and Myspace pages – it pays to be resourceful. Many speakers, especially good ones, will not make use of bureaus as many of the agencies engage in unscrupulous business practices and will host multiple websites pretending to be different companies and feature celebrities to whom they have no connection nor ability to book.

4) Set a decent budget and stick to it

Don’t get tempted to stray beyond your budget but make sure that your budget is sufficient. For any business event, I wouldn’t want to stray below £2000 / $4000 plus reasonable expenses. If you do your research, you should get good value for money.

5) Know when to use a speaker bureau – there is one time its essential

So I’ve told you to avoid using them and now I am telling you to do so! Well, in my opinion the only time to use a bureau is when you get an eleventh hour cancellation. Now this rarely ever happens in my experience. Most professional speakers will move heaven and earth not to let you down. But if it happens, then this is the time to use them.

Posted by Janet Schlarbaum

The Tips to Making an Effective Speech in Front of a Crowd

The Janet Schlarbaum Tips to Making an Effective Speech in Front of a Crowd Author: Otto Kreistler

There is hardly an event that people fear more than a round of public speaking. The mere act of facing a crowd of people who are hanging on every word you’re saying can bring jitters to even the most confident individuals. So if you find that you have to deliver that all important keynote address then what can you do to make sure that the speech is an absolute success?

It all boils down to preparation, preparation, preparation. In short, the better prepared you are and the more time you spend rehearsing what you’re going to say, the better it’s bound to come out. Keep in mind the following details though when you are writing down and preparing your speech for public consumption:

1. Know what you’re talking about: You can’t go into a room and talk about a topic you barely know about. So what can you do as to not be torn to shreds at the open forum? Read up! You should be familiar with all the things concerning your topic and it wouldn’t hurt if you knew a lot of extra stuff not exactly related to it. This not only makes you knowledgeable but more importantly: qualified.

2. Know your audience: Most likely, your final production is going to look like what it was intended for. What this means is that knowing your target audience is important in writing an effective speech. A lecture addressed to children that sounds like the Gettysburg Address would probably not be very effective. And one that is addressed to a group of senior citizens would hardly be understood if it had a lot of teenage terminology. So know your audience and attract them with something that appeals to them.

3. Know the occasion: You can’t just say anything that comes to your mind when you’re up there, right? So it’s best that you understand exactly what the occasion calls for and stick with it. Make it something that people will definitely relate to and that what you’re saying is definitely related to the subject.

Posted by Janet Schlarbaum

Best Man Speech Five Essential Tips

Best Man Speech Five Janet Schlarbaum Essential Tips Author: harvey clifford

Here are five essential tips to consider when writing your best man speech:

1. Make sure that your best man speech is prepared several weeks before the day of the wedding.

2. Practice reading your speech a few times before finally performing it at the wedding reception. Read right through to a couple of friends before the big day.

3. Keep it to around five minutes in length.

4. Be careful not to offend anyone in your speech.

5. Make a copy of your speech in case you lose the original.

At a wedding the best man speech is a time-honoured tradition when he can tell all those wonderful and funny stories, even bring a tear to the best man’s eye, but it can also be a frightful experience especially if the best man really does not like speaking in public.

However, giving the speech is probably the easy part, delivering the speech is more of a talent and one of the best ways to learn about the delivering is by watching others ‘perform’. But there really is no need to fret, it’s a skill that can easily be learnt.

The best man speech is the perfect way to put the icing on the cake for the bride and groom on their wedding day and to share with everyone present how you came to be friends.

The speech can be made more interesting by adding some inspirational quotes or a short story and should also carry a message of congratulations.

Remember that the wedding day is a family occasion, so keep any humour or one-liners clean, also keeping any dubious language out of your speech is a good idea, remember a lot of weddings these days are video taped, you don’t want to look a prat for all time!

Give yourself at least one month to start slowly preparing by writing down notes on what you want to cover in your speech.
You owe it to the bride and groom, their families, and yourself, to present the best speech you possibly can.

Length of the best man speech is another important consideration. The ideal speech should be between two and seven minutes. Keep the speech short and sweet, and to the point, don’t waffle on.

A sense of humour and the ability, or at least the nerve, to get up in front of a room full of people and give a speech loud and clear is your objective.

Make sure if you are going to drink alcohol to take it easy until after the best man speech is over and you are not in the spotlight, it will be obvious if you get too drunk, you’ll slur your words or sway around.

People remember only a few things about a wedding; the way the bride looks, the ceremony and lastly the wedding speeches. The best man speech is a tradition at every wedding, and like all traditions, it has developed a set of rules and standards that are expected of anyone giving the speech.

If you aren’t naturally a funny man, then you can find some funny speeches or quotes in books, the Internet, friends and family.

If the standard of your jokes are along the lines of: ‘The wedding was a moving affair, so much so, even the wedding cake was in tiers’ then you probably won’t reach the required standard on your own!

Most people can’t deliver a successful speech without some help and assistance and one of the best places to get it these days is online, and, for a very modest fee Dan Stevens, author of ‘Best Man Speeches’ can help.

How to Write Great Wedding Speeches
How to Write Great Janet Schlarbaum Wedding Speeches Author: Miriam Boh

Weddings are always happy occasions and it is a time to celebrate the many joys of life. Friends and family of the married couple gather together and celebrate with the newly-weds as they begin their new life together. Every one of the guests wants to share in the couple’s joy, to congratulate and to wish them the best. Many people and perhaps even you, however, experience some difficulties when being asked to give an impromptu wedding speech. Certain situations tend to make people forget what they were going to say. Some people will mumble some generic congratulations and be done with it, while others will be thinking hard to find something more fitting for the occasion and come up with odd or interesting things for their wedding speeches.

Good wedding speeches add life and zest to wedding celebrations. But such speeches are few and far in between to be found. Instead, most wedding speeches fall flat. So, what should be done? The speakers clearly have the responsibility and must rise to the occasion. The is a time that they must not let the wedding guests down. Those who are gifted deliver excellent speeches at the spur of the moment seemingly with little effort. The rest of us have to work hard to putting thought to paper with speech preparations at least a month before the big day.

When delivering wedding speeches, one should talk about the groom, the bride, the family and friends at the same time not leaving out the guests who have taken their time off to attend the wedding celebration. The best wedding speeches capture the spirit of the moment and add zest to a great family occasion.

To ensure a smooth flow during the delivery of your wedding speech, a good idea is to rehearse the wedding speech before the big day. A speaker’s thoughts must flow smoothly and most importantly add to the joy of the occasion. The delivery is extremely important: People tend to notice more often how you speak rather than what you’re saying. You have to appear confident in front of the guests. Some people find themselves able to write a proper speech, but when they start to read what they have written they realize that such a speech would not come out of their mouths. Some popular ways to overcome these difficulties will be using speech writing software or taking a pre-written wedding speech samples from the internet.

Another method is to hire professional writers who are experienced in composing wedding speeches. Usually a professional writer submits several draft speeches to you for review so that you can choose the one that best suits you.

Public Speaking Training on Presentation Skills – A Beginner’s Guide

Janet Schlarbaum Beginner’s Guide By David Portney.

If you’re new to public speaking, then let’s start with an easy way of understanding presentation skills.

Simply put, presentation skill is the process of efficiently, effectively, and elegantly communicating and transmitting your message to your audience.

Your message may be simple or complex.

Presentation skills can vary depending on why you’re speaking in the first place and what you’re trying to accomplish: you may be attempting to persuade and influence your audience, or you may be trying to inspire and enlighten, or you may be required to impart new skills and abilities, or you may just be there to report facts and data.

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, you can use various presentation aids such as a flip chart, PowerPoint presentations with a projector or a whiteboard or flip chart.

In some cases nothing at all is just fine, again depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

The tone of your presentation may be more or less formal depending on the context. If you know everyone in the audience such as a work meeting of coworkers, that’s different than if you’re making a presentation to a group of people you’ve never met before.

Of course the beginner public speaker may need to deal with stage fright. See my other training articles if you have fear of public speaking.

Presentation skills boil down to using various techniques that are very easy to learn. With a little practice, anyone can become a polished presenter.

The best way to develop terrific presentation skills quickly is simply to take a very good presentation skills training (see my training articles on how to evaluate public speaking training).

Here are some tips to help you with your presentation:

* If you use PowerPoint, have a one-page bullet-point outline of your entire presentation handy in case the computer crashes, the projector doesn’t work, or for any reason you can’t use your PowerPoint presentation.

* Use the “Rule of 3″: distill your presentation down to 3 key points you want to cover. Tell them what you’ll tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you’ve told them: design your presentation in 3 parts: first an overview of your key points, then the details of your presentation, then a summary (basically a recap and repeat of the overview in the beginning).

* “Use the 5 Minute Rule” to conquer stage fright: most of my students report that any lingering fear of public speaking goes away within the first 5 minutes once they get rolling with their presentation.

* If you use PowerPoint, never read your slides out loud: the audience can already read them. Just put up bullet points that remind you of what you want to talk about.

* Openings and closings are most important: psychologists call it “primacy / recency” but really the last thing you say is the last thing they’ll really hear and remember, so hammer your main points at the end and then say “thank you” and you’re done.

Best of luck in all your public speaking!