The Template Temple

You can make a Blue Ribbon presentation each and every time if you follow these 14 rules.

1. “Fire In The Belly”
Remember the key word to successful communications is ENERGY. Speak with conviction. Choose topics about which you are passionately involved. If you will have “fire in your belly”
for the subject, success is almost guaranteed.

2. Focus
Focus on your content and presentation with laser-like aim. Capture the audience’s attention with a startling fact, a powerful question, an arresting quote, or a compelling story. Speak in specifics. Include both facts and feelings. Content is critical and must be clearly outlined and thought through. Presentation skills, however, are what make a presenter effective.

3. Performance
Every time you speak, whether one-on-one or to hundreds, you are performing. Make the performance powerful! Put your whole self into the presentation. If the performance suffers, the content is of little value.

4. Voice Color
Use voice color. We call it vocal variety. What we don’t want is a black and white, bland, monotonous presentation. What we do want is the antithesis of monotony. Learn to whisper and to shout. Speed up and slow down. Pause. Pause some more. Use your entire vocal scale. Think of your voice as a fine violin, oboe or clarinet. Make the tones alive and colorful.

5. Eyes
Use your eyes. Eyes are one of our most powerful means of communication. If your belly is on fire for your subject, your eyes can tell the story. Make eye-to-eye contact with your
audience. As you look at one person, finish a sentence or a thought, then look at another. Let your focus linger one to three seconds. Talk to one person at a time. This creates intimacy.
You will be far more personal and effective than if your eyes scan the crowd.

6. Face
Use your face. The greatest bank account we have in human relations is free. It’s a smile. Add your smile to penetrating eyes and expressive brows. With eyes on fire and an intense face
you will capture the attention of the most callous. Your face is like a television set. People will watch it with more interest if there is color and energy in the picture.

7. Body Parts
Add the power of your body. After your eyes and face come the all-important carrier of the message… your body. Stand tall. Use gestures. Over-emphasize them when you practice. Make bold rather than timid gestures, broad rather than small! Great stage performers have learned how to take advantage of their body, face, eyes, and space.

8. Balance
Maintain physical balance. There’s a subtle difference in the respect awarded those who stand tall and speak with their weight equally balanced on both feet. You lose none of your warmth and appeal by standing tall. You gain stature and a sense of power. It is fine to move, but do so with a purpose. Do not wander aimlessly, pacing and creating a cadence of movement. This becomes monotonous, wears down your audience, and renders the presenter far less effective.

9. Involvement
Involve the audience. Be sensitive to the audience’s needs. Get to know them before you speak. Find out what their individual interests are. Weave that into your presentation. Balance
your emphasis between content and relationships, facts and feelings. We, as presenters, must strive to answer the multiple needs of an audience. Create a balance of information and
entertainment.

10. Practice! Practice! Practice!
This is the most important rule of all. Practice – Practice – Practice. Never take a speaking engagement lightly. If you are to do your best, you must practice. Some presenters fall into the
trap of winging it. The danger is that sometimes “wingers” do a great job. So, they assume they are most effective with no practice. Ask Jack Nicklaus, Michael Jordan, Billy Graham,
Tiger Woods, Liddy Dole, Colin Powell, Jerry Seinfeld, or any star salesperson you know — the greats practice! No exceptions.

11. Get Rid of Your Need to be Perfect
Perfection is an impossible objective. Replace “perfect” with “be my very best.” Being perfect is impossibledon’t attempt it!

12. Rehearse Q & A
When a question and answer period is appropriate, rehearse the Q&A session just as diligently as you do your talk. If there is the possibility of controversy or tough questions, identify the five toughest questions you could be asked and prepare a rehearsed answer for each.

13. No Booze – No racy material – No obscene language
Booze will not make you sharper. It is a very treacherous friend. Off-color material and 4-letter words are not necessary. They will offend someone in every audience. There are too many good words in the English language that will represent you well. Don’t resort to cheap laughs and uneasy applause.

14. Practice . . . some more
. . . and confidence will travel with you.

You can do it!

Ty Boyd, CEO of Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, is in the Broadcast Hall of Fame and the Speakers Hall of Fame. He has taught presentation skills to Fortune 1000 executives in more than 34 countries. His Excellence In Speaking Institute celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2005.

It’s an established fact of internet marketing that one of the
most effective forms of free advertisement is to write and
distribut articles to newsletters. As Stone Evans of Plug-in-Profits
said, “once you get one of YOUR ARTICLES published on someone
else’s blog or website, that article and the links within it are
probably going to remain there FOREVER.”

But finding ideas that jump off the page can seem a daunting
task. Many marketers stare at a blank screen, lost, as if hoping
an idea will emerge on its own. Experienced writers know ideas
are not created in a vaccum. Ideas, especially article ideas,
are like branches of a tree: Each grows from another.
Understanding this is the first step in finding the ideas
needed. Because the nuclei of article ideas are all around us,
in every day life. The trick is to see them for what they are.

Below are some excellent sources for ideas, ones that most
writers use without even realizing it.

1. DISCUSSIONS

During the course of many conversations, a clever writer will
naturally learn two things: what it is they, themselves, know
and what it is others don’t, but want/need to. Many articles
have begun from a casual remark or question. For instance, a
writer may be explaining their work to a group of friends and
mention RSS or ROI. One friend may interrupt, asking, “What IS
ROI?” and everyone seems curious. Voila`! Not only does the
writer have an article idea, but a title to go along with it:
“What IS ROI?”

2. FORUMS

In the forums, even new marketers will see others’ questions
that they can anwser. Because forums often bring together some
new and some experienced marketers, one thread can offer ideas
for several different articles. A newbie will ask a question
that is not general knowledge– evidence of this being that many
others’ view the thread and post responses.

3. ARTICLES

This source is two fold, but please do not mis-interpret this as
in any way endorsing plagarism.

– First, by reading others’ articles, a writer’s own questions
and observations can become the seed for article ideas. While
reading about ROI, for instance, the similarity between ROI
factors and smart shopping practises caught my attention and
soon “7 Shopping Tips For Smart Affiliate
Marketing ROI”, was born.

— Second, as a writer works on one article, an off-shoot of
that idea often develops organically. While it may be too
“off-topic” or diverse for the current article, it does form the
nucleus of a new one. During the course of writing this article,
no less than 10 other ideas have presented themselves. (The
value of these ideas and which, if any, will see the light of
day are yet to be seen.)

4. EXPERIENCE

Even the newest marketer brings to marketing some life
experience. If, indeed, one has no experience or relevent
content to add directly related to internet marketing, there is
always the “off-topic” article to be written. While this may be
used in non-marketing newsletters, the point is the author is
exposing his/her link to the world at large.

5. INEXPERIENCE

Yes, that’s right. Most think that experience is a basic
ingredient to writing an article. Yet, generally speaking, it is
often the less experienced marketer that will notice something
their more experienced counter-parts have over looked. Noticing
these things can often spur great article ideas.

6. BRAINSTORM

This is a classic writer’s tool and with good reason: it works.
Brainstorming is merely a matter of sitting quietly with paper
and pen (or word-processing software, as the case may be) and
writing down every possible idea, regardless of value or
judgement that occurs to them related to a given subject. It
differs from the sources above (which should be written down
ASAP) because it comes from stream-of-consciousness thinking,
from free-association, rather than a specific source. The value
of these, too, should be decided later.

The main ingredient in finding good article ideas is to learn to
think in terms of articles. That is, to see the possible ideas
when they present themselves and to grab hold of them. Sometimes
the newest writer can seize on the hottest article idea, once
they know what to look for. With practise, too, it becomes
easier.–mo