Sandra Schrift’s Exective Speech Coaching blog supports my recent contention that speech coaches make better lovers. Sandra is obviously skilled in the arts of the podium, shares her special talents liberally and transforms speaking weaknesses to strengths. She’s a highly regarded international speech coach, featured in Business Week, Fast Company, Newsweek and Inc., who offers a wide range of teleclass, small group and 1:1 speech and professional coaching. She owned a speaker bureau for 13 years. Her blog bears witness to her vast experience.

Blogging since: June 19, 2005
Posting Frequency: 3-4 times a month
Post Length: 100-300 words
Aesthetic Appeal: Purple haze…does not integrate with the look n’ feel of her main website.
Graphics: None
Categories: None
Blogroll: None
Target Audience: Speakers wishing to improve their game
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: No
Alexa.com traffic ranking: 2,324,563
Sites that link to this blog: 173
Yahoo Links: 725
Google Page Rank: 4/10

Review:

Her main web page lists the results she delivers as a coach:

Even if you don’t hire her, you’ll benefit from a careful reading of the content in her blog.

Sandra cleverly repurposes her blog postings as articles on her main website. So this posting becomes this article. It’s an effective way to get more bang for the buck that other NSA bloggers should consider.

In fact the articles listed here are easier to peruse than the blog, which lacks a search function and has a quirky way of archiving by date ranges rather than months.

Her blog has invaluable tips on everything from the importance of using stories in speeches:

Stories are everywhere. Speakers learn to retrieve them and retell them to audiences as a way to show their humanness to show they care; to open people to possibility thinking and how making mistakes will lead to the courage to finally help them succeed. Because most of us delineate our thoughts visually, great stories help to enhance and even transform our lives.

to ways to overcome a fear of public speaking, gain confidence and generate extra income from speaking. The main web site has some great tips not found on her blog, such as this FAQ for speakers.

I loved reading her 3-part series on How to Speak with E’s: Educate, Energize, Entertain, and provide an experience for your audience. There’s a total of 39 tips on professional speaking in that series alone. Example:

5. When appropriate smile a lot. Be enthusiastic about what you are saying. Make it fun. Learning is directly proportional to the amount of fun your audience is having. Laughter is like internal jogging. Aren’t adults just grown up kids?

Sandra’s blog and the articles on her main website are a great resource for all speakers and those, like speechwriters and communications professionals, who support speakers.

My hope is that Sandra invests in some basic functionality for her blog such as a Search function and a list of Categories to help readers find information more easily. Graphics and pictures would help brighten things up. There are formatting errors here and there that should be corrected.

It’s really the blog plus the website that is so compelling. While there’s a link to her Home Page on the blog, people might miss it. I’d recommend a clear statement Please read my Home Page for more valuable information to really high-light it. Sandra has a lot to share that both novice and experienced speaker can benefit from taking the time to read carefully. Heck, some of you reading this review should probably hire her. Go on, you’re worth it!