Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum Tools - Pennsylvania

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 of Lancaster, Pennsylvania

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 of Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Posted by: Janet Schlarbaum, Pennsylvania

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.

Posted by: Janet Schlarbaum, Pennsylvania
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.

By: Jim Casasa

The basic tools of public speaking will help your speech, voice, and communication skill. You are most likely doing some of these already. It is the one you are not doing that can make the difference.

Here is a list of tools to have well before you do any speaking. They will assist you in making stronger, clearer, and more effective public speaking presentations. They are easy to use, and easy not to use. Apply them to make a difference in your speaking ability.

Tip one. Always have a notepad and pen available. Public speaking is part art and that art is creativity. Use a notepad to write down your creative ideas which will make up the content of your speech.

Tip two. Use a tape recorder to tape your voice. This is one of the best public speaking tools ever invented! An audio recording shows you a true picture of your voice. It shows your strengths and weaknesses.

Tip three. Have a good dictionary handy. Before you say your speech you will write it out in full. A dictionary helps with spelling errors.

Tip four. Have a good thesaurus ready. Skillful word choices make what you say sound interesting to the listener.

Tip five. Slowly yet steadily build a small library on the English language. Metaphors, quotations, and verse all enrich your skill and speaking ability.

Tip six. Speak as often as you can. Confidence grows when a skill is used. It is an upward spiral. The more you do public speaking the better you get at it.

Tip seven. Before an important speech drink squeezed lemon juice in some warm water. I got this one from professional public speakers. It helps keep your voice clear if you have to speak continuously for an extended period of time.

These basic tools of public speaking will help you. Maybe you only need one or two of the tips listed. Speaking is like sending a man to the moon. You are only successful if you have the basics covered. Now that you have the basic public speaking tools you can reach as high and be as successful with public speaking as you want to be.

Posted by: Janet Schlarbaum, Pennsylvania

By: James Malinchak

If you are a public speaker, you know how important it is to win over your audience from the get go. This means speaking in such a way to force your audience to look at you, especially when you begin speaking. Public speaking is not an attribute or event that anyone can do. It takes many skills including perseverance, patience, a positive attitude, and the ability to motivate a crowd.

To be great at public speaking, you have to be able to wow your audience from the start. This means producing a great speech introduction. You have to know your material extremely well, but know how to deliver it in a non-boring way. A great way to start an introduction speech, is by grabbing your audience’s attention right away. You can do this in a number of ways. An introduction speech sample would be like sitting in a chair and standing up in the back room as you are announced, then walk across a chair or two, or even walk across a desk as you proceed to the front of the room. This will surely grab the audience since they did not expect that. Or maybe you can look at your audience as you come up front and yell some kind of instruction or message at them, expecting a response.

Other examples of speech introduction may be when you tell your audience to take out a piece of paper and prepare to write down a list of the most important topics you will give in the speech. This will raise their anticipation level, knowing to expect something valuable to be told to them. Or, you can start off your speech by telling a spellbinding story. That will really captivate your audience in a hurry and hold their attention. This is especially true if you are an enthusiastic speaker.

If you are new to public speaking, you can learn how to start a speech, by listening to those who are experts at it. By paying attention to those who have done it for years, you’ll be able to pick up a trick or two, and improve your delivery.

The key to presenting your speech is by having a great speech introduction, and then go forward with your audience in mind and give them a reason to react to you and listen to what you have to say. If you do this, you will find your ability at public speaking will increase and you’ll gain more speaking opportunities.

Posted by Janet Schlarbaum, Pennsylvania

By: Angela Wade

Many people have already heard of the speeches that are given at the wedding reception. These speeches are usually given by the father of the bride, the groom, and the best man. If you are a member of the wedding party, then you may not have considered that there may be an additional speech that you may be asked to give.

This is the after dinner speeches at the rehearsal dinner. This is not nearly as stressful as the wedding day speeches. This can be difficult if you are one of the people who has to give a speech at both the reception and the rehearsal dinner. It can be difficult to think of topics to discuss at both. This article is going to give you some tips for writing your rehearsal dinner speech.

*Since the rehearsal dinner is in a relaxed setting, unlike the reception speeches it is appropriate to give a short personal story at the rehearsal dinner speech. This can be a humorous story or a story about one of your personal relationships.

*Make sure that you keep your speech short and charming.

*Avoid drinking too much before presenting your speech. This could be a big embarrassment not only to yourself but the bride and groom as well.

*You should prepare the speech beforehand and practice it in the mirror. This will ensure that the speech looks and sounds just right.

*It is appropriate to use quotes or poem when delivering the rehearsal dinner speech.

This article was written to give a few tips for preparing a rehearsal dinner speech. Just try to relax and speak from the heart.