The Northern California Chapter of the National Speakers Association has been running an Academy for emerging speakers since 2005. The Speakers Academy (originally called Pro-Track) has graduated over 300 speakers from the year-long training program. Since 2007 I have interviewed over 45 graduates and posted their information and the accompanying podcasts to this blog.

I recently contacted some of the graduates to ask them how their careers as professional speakers have progressed since they took the training.

Gary Karp

Gary graduated from the Academy in 2007. My original interview with him listed his already impressive credentials as an internationally recognized author, keynote speaker, trainer, and facilitator.

In the last year alone he has spoken at many premier venues including Microsoft, Starbucks, the Mayo Clinic, Boeing, the Scottsdale Human Relations Commission, Genentech, County of San Diego, the University of New Mexico and the University of Minnesota.

Gary says that he values those moments during a talk “when I can see and feel the emotional connection, when I know I’m not only communicating but touching something authentic in someone. I see it in their engaged focus, in the gentle nodding of someone’s head, in their laughter. Those are the moments that make this worthwhile, the moments I work for.”

Gary acknowledges the profound impact the Academy had on his career as a professional speaker:

I got down to business following my Pro-Track experience. I’d been speaking, and I had work, but I had not adopted the business mindset I needed to get my business to the next level. I learned a great deal that was practical, about things that needed to be done. But the real beauty of the experience was a deeper, core attitude about my speaking as a true profession that required an elevated level of focus and business thinking. Being primarily a creative person, I’ll always have to work harder at those, but the priorities are now indelibly part of my awareness, and I could not be more appreciative of how Pro-Track met that need — nor of the dear friends I made in the process.

Frauke Schorr, PhD

Frauke joined the NSA Speakers Academy in 2010 when she was building her corporate training and executive development company, the Centered Leadership Institute. Her company provides High Performance Coaching, Workshops, Seminars and Leadership Retreats customized to client needs.

As someone who has interviewed leading business people in Silicon Valley and throughout the world and uncovered patterns of thinking common to successful entrepreneurs, she appreciates the boost that the Academy gave her:

The Speakers Academy is run by accomplished NSA speakers who generously volunteer their expertise and time to those attending the program. I found immense value in the practical insights and resources around building a credible speaking practice such as defining your brand, effectively booking speaking engagements, and defining the audience you are meant to speak to.

With a supportive community of like-minded peers, I found myself highly encouraged to increase my speaking engagements from the get go. By the end of the year, I had spoken in well over 50 venues with audiences ranging from 10-100+ participants. I was impressed by the generous support offered by seasoned NSA speakers throughout the year. Many good things have developed from my participation in the Speakers Academy. I have joined NSA Northern California Chapter and serve on the Board as a way to contribute to this great community. I have booked speaking engagements as a result of being listed on the NSA website.

Wendy Hanson

I met Wendy when she enrolled in the 2011 Academy class and since then we’ve got to know each other as fellow NSA/NC Board members. She was already a member of the National Speakers Association when she enrolled in the Academy training program and since then has continued to grow her speaking business.

She’s recently spoken at the AIPSO Leadership Series, Johnston RI; Leading Women, Warwick, RI; HRMRI-Human Resources Professional in RI and MA where she led a discussion on International differences with college students and HR Professionals; and the East Bay Women’s Network, Alameda, CA. She also co-leads a wine tasting and leadership discussion for a world-wide consulting company at their high end marketing events.

Wendy also produces the highly-regarded weekly radio show It’s All in the BRA: BUSINESS-REVENUE-ASSETS where she is joined by fabulous guests to talk about business, leadership and innovation from a woman’s perspective. The show airs live online every Monday at 1 p.m. PST on Contact Talk Radio International. The show is also available through select satellite stations and online streaming via iTunes Radio, LIVE365.com, Ping.FM, TuneIn.com, Upsnap Mobile and Xiaa Mobile.

Wendy states that:

I really appreciated the knowledge and generosity of all the instructors at Pro-Track. The course was instrumental in helping me build a strong network of colleagues I stay connected to. It was a great business decision to learn so much about the business of speaking, even though I was already a member of NSA. I can’t imagine any other program providing as much information, support, coaching and camaraderie. I highly recommend it!

Aaron McDaniel

I first met with Aaron last year he was enrolled in the Academy. At the time, I noted that he had published his first book — The Young Professional’s Guide to the Working World — and ran a company focused on empowering young professionals to succeed in their careers. My own daughter read his book shortly after graduating and used the suggestions in it to help launch her own career.

Since graduating from the Academy he has gone on to become a member of the National Speakers Association. He’s spoken to companies like UnitedHealth Group, at universities such as UC Berkeley and to young leaders at organizations like the United Way. He released his second book, The Young Professional’s Guide to Managing: Building, Guiding and Motivating Your Team to Achieve Awesome Results and continues to focus on helping millennials build the foundation for successful careers.

Aaron says that:

Pro-Track played a key role in launching my speaking career. I value how Pro-Track not only improved my speaking skills but more importantly taught me how to run a successful speaking business.

Kurt Shaver

Kurt is the owner of The Sales Foundry, a training organization which brings Social Selling Skills to America’s top sales teams. Since graduating Pro-Track in 2011 he’s spoken to a wide variety of sales associations about social media and, especially, LinkedIn. His most memorable moment on stage was speaking to an audience of 300 at a national sales meeting on a huge stage with a split screen video on both sides.

Kurt acknowledges the impact Pro-Track had on his career:

Pro-Track really helped me focus on a niche. I came in as a general sales speaker/trainer and left zero-ed in on speaking about LinkedIn selling techniques to reach decision makers. It helped me get selected as one of only six official LinkedIn Sales Training partners in North America. I also met some new best friends in Pro-Track. I still associate with them professionally and socially years later.

Now enrolling for 2014

If you have an interest in the business of professional speaking, there is still time to enroll in the 2014 program. I took the training myself and well remember my first class back in January 2006. It was an eye-opening experience. Check it out.

Journalist Michael Skapinker notes in the FT that US Visa questions include

• Are you coming to the United States to engage in prostitution or unlawful commercialized vice or have you been engaged in prostitution or procuring prostitutes within the past 10 years?
• Do you have a communicable disease of public health significance such as tuberculosis (TB)?
• Do you belong to a clan or tribe?
• Have you, while serving as a government official, been responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom?
• Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organization?

In researching the reasons for these questions — which seem unlikely in the extreme to ever have anyone answer “Yes” — Skapinker uncovers a rich tapestry of reasons they are posed to overseas visitors.

Take the one about TB. Officials at Ellis Island used to keep members of the huddled masses out of these shores if they were infected.

Many of the others — such as asking terrorists to declare themselves — are there so that when they, natch, answer “No” and are later apprehended they can be deported since they obtained the visa by fraud or misrepresentation.

The question that most perplexes Skapinker is the one asking foreign government officials if they have ever been responsible for “particularly severe” violations of religious freedom. He wonders if mild violations of religious freedom are acceptable. Apparently the only person to have been barred admission on these grounds is Narendra Modi, tipped by some to become the next Indian Prime Minister, for alleged complicity in the deadly 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat.

Beyond the mysteries of the visitor visa questions are the ones posed to those of us who wish to became US Citizens. I well remember hearing the claim of one friend from Ireland who, when asked “What flies over the White House?” knowingly replied “Crows”. Many citizenship questions would, however, stump the average American. Example:

• The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution. Name one of the writers.
• Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of the states?
• The House of Representatives has how many voting members?

Answers here.

My own proficiency with the English language was tested when I was taking my citizenship test by having to carefully write the phrase “I usually drive my car to work.”

I’m glad to say that I passed the test, even though I now take the ferry to work, which is where I usually read the Financial Times.

The Circle is a dystopian view of Silicon Valley set in a future time that could be, oh, sometime the day after tomorrow. Dave Eggers has crafted a story set in the corporate campus environment of a fictional social media company that will seem all too familiar to anyone who has spent time in the headquarters of a Facebook, Apple or Google.

While the plot, as many reviewers have noted, can be a little creaky, the main thesis of the book is that the world of social media that many of us have rushed headlong into has threatening potential. By trading privacy (you have none, get over it, a tech titan once remarked) for ease of communication with our circle of friends we have entered a Faustian bargain with the bright young sparks who have created the social media sites we love to love.

The book’s main character is a young woman at the start her career. She starts work at the company named “The Circle” that provides the kind of college-dorm on steroids environment the Google and Facebook’s of the world are famous for: free food, parties, famous musicians, fire-eaters & jugglers at company events. With a workplace like this, why leave? The on campus crash pads have refrigerators stocked with goodies, it’s summertime and the living is easy.

However, it isn’t long before the summer sun turns into a winter of discontent.

Our twenty-something heroine slowly realizes that the success on her work position is associated with activities that are anything but voluntary, like attending events and sharing everything with the Circle community, about each and every minute of her life, as a company motto states: “Sharing is Caring”.

To outline any more of the plot would be to spoil the shock of recognition that those of us who spend time in and around Silicon Valley must feel when reading about the All Hands Meetings, customer service centers, managerial shenanigans and office romances on the shores of the San Francisco Bay.

Future Perfect

The weirdest part of the reading The Circle, for me, what what I started noticing in the news after I put the book down. The headlines suddenly seemed to be taken from later chapters. Literally, in the last two weeks, I’ve seen news reports about a mysterious barge Google is building on the Bay; Palo Alto police might start wearing body-mounted cameras (hopefully, as in the novel, they’ll automatically switch off for three minutes while the user in the toilet); and, just in time for this blog posting, The Economist reports that “life-loggers” are embracing the potential of Google Glass to create a people’s panopticon.

The Circle is an entertaining read. Recommended.

There was a thorough overview of ways to overcome a fear of public speaking in Tuesday’s FT.

They advise that practice makes all the difference. I agree. I like to point out that people who only play tennis twice a year are probably not very good at it. Hitting the ball, or hitting the podium, every week makes all the difference. That’s why Toastmaster’s International is a great sandbox for all speakers to practice in. There’s bound to be a club near you.

The fear of public speaking is so pervasive that the bar for acceptability is really quite low. Most business speeches are dull, “In fact, many of what are thought of as awful speeches are decent speakers saying the wrong thing.” The article points out that public speaking breaks into two categories: what you say, and how you say it. They claim, quite rightly in this speechwriters’ opinion, that the former is considerably more important.

A dozen solid tips on developing and delivering a speech include:

• Know the audience and anticipate their questions in the content you deliver
• Write for the spoken word not the written
• Use personal stories
• People only take away three things from a speech (the rule of three)
• Prepare more material than you need to be ready for follow-up questions. (I’d point out that most speakers don’t have a problem finding material, it’s editing it down that causes many people headaches.)
• Don’t read a script — the article points to the harm Amazon founder Jeff Bezos did to his delivery when he read from notes in this Princeton commencement address
• Avoid a TelePrompTer
• Avoid filler words (a few week’s with a ToasterMaster “Ah Counter” will cure most verbal ticks)
• Signpost your speech to the audience – clearly stating where your theme is going
• Vary your pitch and emphasis (which Toastmasters calls “Vocal Variety”)
• Limit PowerPoint
• Deliver a strong finish.

Among the most effective ways of dealing with stage fright that I’ve come across as the techniques of voice control outlined by Kate Peters in her book Can You Hear Me Now?

It’s also worth working with a coach who has theater or improv experience to learn simple yet effective ways to use your body as tool to overcome the symptoms of stage fright.

I’m honored to have my blog listed among the 101 Public Speaking websites published by the Guide to Online Communication Master Programs.

This is a comprehensive, annotated list of websites and blogs dealing with

• Public & Professional Speaking
• Presentation Blogs & Tools
• Speechwriting
• General Communication & Debate

These include many of the sites I refer to on a regular basis as well as ones I was not aware of. This is a resource well worth bookmarking.

David Lavenda’s August 8 “Leadership Now” column in Fast Company online lists 10 Storytelling Tips from Israeli-based Susan Fisher.

Fisher acknowledges the fear some executives have about telling stories since they might be seen as manipulative and emotional. These are presenters who like to stick to facts. However, she points out:

…the truth is that real emotions always work better, because that is the way to reach hearts and minds, and also people get to see the real you. It’s authentic.

Here’s her 10 tips for becoming an authentic and effective storyteller–with my comments in parens:

1. Plan your story starting with the takeaway message. Think about what’s important to the audience. The ending is the most important point of the story. This is the message we want to deliver, and the one that will linger with the audience. (This implies that you also understand what voice coach Kate Peters calls the power of intention.)
2. Keep your stories short for the workplace. Three to five minutes long is about what people can digest in today’s ADD world. (That said, anyone with a young child knows that a good story can hold the attention of an audience like nothing else.)
3. Good stories are about challenge or conflict. Without these elements, stories aren’t very interesting. The compelling part of a story is how people deal with conflict–-so start with the people and the conflict. (I’ve read too many case studies in the technology industry where there is no conflict. This despite customers having to choose between multiple solutions and needing to solve real problems. These are the issues that should be highlighted, but are often ignored.)
4. Think about your story like a movie. Imagine you are screenwriter with a goal to get your message across. The story has to have a beginning, middle, and end. (And as all screenwriters know, it’s important to have an inciting incident early in the story. This marks the turning point. In this moment, you answer two questions: What do your characters want? What might prevent them from getting it?)
5. Start with a person and his challenge, and intensify human interest by adding descriptions of time, place, and people with their emotions. (As world-class public speaking coach Patricia Fripp often says, one the secrets of successful storytelling is to use specific descriptions: specificity builds credibility.)
6. Be creative. Create a storyboard; draw it out, while listening to music or reading something for inspiration. A good story always has ups and downs, so “arc” the story. Pull people along, and introduce tension, just like in a fairy tale. (“From out of nowhere, the wolf jumps onto the path …”) (Fiction writer and corporate storyteller Justina Chen urges us to lean into the messy, creative process that storytelling involves.)
7. Intensify the story with vivid language and intonation. Tap into people’s emotions with language. Use metaphors, idioms, and parables that have emotional associations. (Note: For more on this, see Leo Widrich’s article entitled, “Which Words Matter Most When You Talk” and studies on intonation performed by Ingrid Johnsrude at Cambridge University). (The Widrich article touches on the ways the brain processes language. For a more complete discussion of the importance of Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas of the brain and the importance of action verbs in speech, see Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads by Roy H. Williams.)
8. When using a story in a PowerPoint presentation, use appropriate graphics/pictures to convey your message. Stay away from text and complicated graphics. A single picture interlaced with emotional language will go a long way to convey your message. (As explained in the books of Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte.)
9. Most of us have not told stories in front of an audience since English class in high school. So you will need to practice. Tell your story in front of a friendly audience and get feedback. Gauge your pace, and take note of the story’s length and your use of language. It will be a bit rusty at first, but underneath it all, we are all born storytellers. (Don’t just ask the audience what they thought of your story, ask them what they wanted to hear more about, and what could be cut.)
10. The most important point is to make the switch within; because once you internalize that today’s “left-brain” communication style doesn’t work very well and you realize that stories are how people really communicate, you will find it a lot easier to proceed…because it’s authentic. And that is what really persuades. (Indeed. The specific techniques of persuasive storytelling have been known in detail since the time of Aristotle and Cicero. Today’s savvy politicians use every trick in the book with stunning results.)

Nancy Duarte was the guest speaker at Monday’s meeting of the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable. Duarte is the well-known author of slide:ology and Resonate and the founder and CEO of Duarte, Inc.

Nancy acknowledged the important role writing her books has had on the growth of her business. A few years ago, while searching for presentation blogs, she came across Garr Reynolds Presentation Zen blog. Garr encouraged her to write a book that covered “everything he left on the table” with his own draft of Presentation Zen. The result was slide:ology. She is grateful that Garr encouraged her to write her first book, since it was instrumental in helping refocus her agency on presentation-specific work.

Garr and Nancy are still good friends and she hosted him at a recent lunchtime talk about presentations at the Silicon Valley headquarters of her company.

Nancy’s second book, Resonate, was in many ways the prequel to her first. She acknowledges that writing slide:ology made the phone ring for slides, while Resonate made the phone ring for content. She sees a trend with some of her clients where she is being asked to help develop creative content and conversations that don’t need slides. She sometimes arms clients with graphics they can draw on a whiteboard while presenting.

How to work with clients

The concepts in Resonate are one model among many her company uses. When they engage with clients they first host an interactive discovery workshop. They probe for the “one big idea” that the client wishes to communicate. This can be a painful process for some clients, who might not have given their big idea any thought and might, in fact, discover they lack the focus they need to have before they present. The next step for the Duarte team is to break down and rebuild the clients’ idea, wrap it in a story and concepts and then re-propose back to the client what they think they should say. At this stage they use slide maps which match the stages of the presentation to the best supporting images, data or pictures. Once this is approved, the presentation is story-boarded.

Nancy’s advice for speechwriters who have “difficult” clients–who are not be fully invested in the need to prepare for a presentation–is to pick a high stakes presentation to request complete client involvement. Avoid getting caught up in small skirmishes. The higher the stakes, the more involvement an executive should see they need to have. That is the time to pitch the ideas on why it needs to be done right. Speechwriters need to understand most clients are not masters of the spoken word. We are the experts in storytelling who live and breathe this world. It’s advisable to give clients time to acclimate to our ways of thinking.

Sparklines

A Sparkline is an analysis tool Nancy introduced in Resonate that represents a presentation. She jokes that, no, Martin Luther King did not use a Sparkline to plan his “I Have a Dream” speech since she was only two-years old at the time! Indeed, a Sparkline is not something to use in preparing a speech, but in analyzing why a successful speech works.

“If you were to align on the left everything that is what is, and align on the right everything what could be, and you’ve crafted it and you know it’s right, it ends up following the form on its own. It’s a pattern that is persuasive.”

TED Talk

she gives some compelling examples OF Sparklines in her TED talk that has been seen over a million people:

Such eloquence does not come easily. Nancy mentioned that she put over 30 hours rehearsal time into her 18-minute TED talk. The TED format forces people to be concise and has, she believes, changed the presentation industry. It’s the new gold standard and audiences now know what a good presentation looks like. Audiences have low tolerance for lack of presentation and TED has played a part in that.

Among the women speakers Nancy admires are:

• Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight TED talk
• Brene Brown on The power of vulnerability
• Sheryl Sandberg as a powerful emerging speaker
• Evita Peron as the only woman in history to speak to an audience of two million.

What’s Next?

Nancy revealed she has a new book coming in October. She also plans to release a free multimedia version of Resonate. Her team are also developing tools that allow audiences will tap into a second screen for detailed information on a presentation.

If you are interested in attending future virtual meetings of the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable, open to anyone, regardless of location, please sign up on our Meetup page and you’ll be notified.

One of the rules of improv theater that I learned when I took classes at the Pan Theater in Oakland is learning to say “Yes, and…” in response to any suggestion from another actor who is a partner in a scene.

For a story to be built, the players have to agree to the basic situation and set-up. By saying yes, we accept the reality created by our partners and begin the collaborative process from the start of a scene. The collaborative process puts us in situations that we would normally avoid.

It was refreshing to read a quote from Google executive Eric Schmidt supporting the value of this approach, not just on the stage, but in terms of life in general:

“Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learn something new. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it’s a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means that you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference. Yes lets you stand out in a crowd, be the optimist, see the glass full, be the one everyone comes to. Yes is what keeps us all young.”

Thanks to my fellow Ace of Hobos Improv Troupe member David Linder for sharing this gem.

Back on June 27 I spent a delightful and instructive day helping judge emerging speakers at Sahar Kordahi’s Bright Side of Life Voices of Leadership day.

Over 30 speakers competed in a showcase where they gave three-minute speeches that were evaluated in terms of presentation skills, message content, personal appearance and stage presence. The five winning presenters were Dawn Christensen, Carolyn CJ Jones, Jim Niswonger, Sandra Patino, and Ryann Pryor-Foster. They will give a 15-minute presentation at the follow-up event being held in Pleasanton, California on August 16.

The speakers were trained by Pam Whitman and Sahar Kordahi. In addition to individual coaching the winning speakers will receive

• “Look the Talk” image consulting with fashion expert Olga Kamova
• A speech writing coaching session with me
• “Stand in your Leadership Role” coaching session with Sahar Kordahi
• “Lead and Speak with Balance” with speech performance and movement specialist Pam Whitman
• Support from the collaborative “Voices of Leadership” team
• Referrals to other speaking opportunities

This was a well-produced, motivational and educational event perfect for emerging speakers to develop skills that will take them from “free to fee” in the exciting world of professional speaking.

I highly recommend registering for the August 16th Be the Voice of Leadership event and join in the program that Sahar and Pam have produced.

Interview

I caught up with Sahar & Pam after the event and asked them to share the background to the Voices of Leadership. To hear what they told me, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:34 — 1.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Anyone interested in the world of professional speaking should check out two relevant resources from the National Speakers Association (NSA).

Note: This is the NSA that speaks, not the NSA that listens!

SPEAKER Magazine

Published 10 times a year this house magazine of the NSA is sent to all members. However, anyone can read the content in an online archive of SPEAKER Magazine at no charge. You can browse every edition back to January 2007.

Check out the January 2013 edition with the NSA Northern California Chapter founder Patricia Fripp on the cover. Fripp writes about the “game changers” in a speaker’s career, including those in her own life which took her from her home in England (where she grew up with younger brother, renowned guitarist Robert Fripp) to San Francisco to the world stage.

Voices of Experience

NSA members receive a Voices of Experience audio CD with each magazine. These interview-style hour-long CD’s are where the world of professional speaking comes alive. Voices of Experience is an audio magazine in which top achievers share their experiences to bring members vital, up-to-date information on every facet of the speaking profession. Discussion topics include secrets about platform skills, growing a businesses, and life on the road.

Until recently, you had to be a dues paying member to hear this content. However, archives of VOE are now available on the Voices of Experience Podcast Network site as downloadable or streaming audio. Archives go back to January 2009.

I’d recommend downloading the MP3’s and loading them onto your iPod for a priceless audio education in all aspects of professional speaking, coaching, consulting, training and entrepreneurship.