ACM: The Professional Speaker

Professional speakers can give a variety of presentations to a variety of audiences. This manual offers guidance in preparing and presenting a keynote address, an entertaining speech, a sales training speech, a seminar and a motivational speech. Includes information about marketing yourself as a professional speaker.


Project #1: The Keynote Address
Executive Summary:
A keynote speaker establishes a rapport with the audience in order to galvanize them. Match your delivery style to the tenor of the event, whether it's celebratory, serious or somewhere in-between. Project your confidence and authority to arouse your audience's interest. Use dramatization to make abstract ideas tangible and inspire listeners to apply your ideas to their lives.

Objectives:

• Identify the basic differences between keynote speeches and other kinds of speeches.
• Learn how to evaluate audience feeling and establish emotional rapport.
• Learn and use the professional techniques necessary for a successful keynote presentation.
• Develop a speech style and delivery that effectively inspires and moves the audience to adopt your views as a collective reaffirmation of its own.
• TIME : 15 to 20 minutes – longer if club program allows.

Note to the Evaluator:
The purpose of this project was for the speaker to prepare, rehearse and deliver a 15-to-20-minute keynote address (option of longer presentation if program allows). The speaker should arrange with the Toastmaster of the meeting to announce to the club members what audience group or organization they represent. The speech should reflect audience feeling and emotional rapport associated with that specific audience. The style and delivery should be dynamic and should inspire the audience. In addition to your oral evaluation, please write answers to the questions below.


Project #2: Speaking To Entertain
Executive Summary:
People enjoy hearing stories, and humorous stories top most people's lists. Audiences connect best with tales that have a universal theme or message and a clear storyline. Humor increases the allure of the anecdote. Include exaggeration, understatement, twisted definitions, puns, parody, and misdirection in your speech to create a pleasant diversion for your audience

Objectives:

• Entertain the audience through the use of humor drawn from personal experience and from other material that you have personalized.
• Deliver the speech in a way that makes the humor effective.
• Establish personal rapport with your audience for maximum impact.
• TIME : 15 to 20 minutes – longer if club program allows.

Note to the Evaluator:
The purpose of this project was for the speaker to prepare, rehearse and deliver a 15-to 20-minute entertaining speech with the objective of helping the audience have fun (option of longer presentation if program allows). The presentation should illustrate concern with sequence, simplicity, vividness and unexpected twists, and its organization should be readily apparent. However, in a humorous speech, it is possible that structure will be nonexistent. In addition to your oral evaluation, please write answers to the questions below.


Project #3: The Sales Training Speech
Executive Summary:
Make learning fun! Display your showmanship to teach your audience sales concepts and techniques. Use humor and recount dramatic success stories in your speech to embody abstract ideas and technical information. Share your insights about how to create an eager customer.

Objectives:

• Tell a sales audience how to sell a product by using a planned presentation.
• Inform a sales training audience about the human experience of the buyer-seller relationship.
• Use entertaining stories and dynamic examples of sales situations.
• Inspire salespeople to want to succeed in selling.
• TIME : 15 to 20 minutes – longer if club program allows.

Note to the Evaluator:
The purpose of this project was for the speaker to prepare and deliver a sales training presentation of from 15 to 20 minutes (option of longer presentation if program allows). His or her goal was to teach members of the audience about sales concepts and techniques and to inspire them to success. The speaker was to put showmanship and entertainment into the presentation and to give the audience a selling system that could be applied in major steps. In addition to your oral evaluation, please write answers to the questions below.


Project #4: The Professional Seminar
Executive Summary:
Successful seminars begin with clearly states objectives so, at the end of the seminar, the audience is able to quantify exactly what they have learned. Remember that seminar attendees have challenges and they're counting on you to help them discover the information they need to create solutions. Personify the skills and knowledge you teach because you are the audience's role model.

Objectives:

• Plan and present a seminar with specific learning objectives.
• Relate to the audience by using a seminar presentation style.
• Use seminar presentation techniques to promote group participation, learning and personal growth.
• TIME : 20 to 40 minutes

Note to the Evaluator:
The purpose of this project was for the speaker to present a 20- to 40-minute seminar in his or her field of expertise. The seminar should have specific learning objectives introduced during the speaker’s audience warm-up and orientation opening. The speaker’s presentation style should provide a role model reflecting the skills and knowledge of what he or she is teaching. He or she should incorporate effective seminar presentation techniques to promote group participation, learning and personal growth.


Project #5: The Motivational Speech
Executive Summary:
A motivational speaker's purpose is to supply listeners with the impetus to achieve a goal. Appeal to the audience's beliefs and values through dramatization, vibrant stories and enthusiasm. Give them an incentive and persuade them to embrace your message.

Objectives:

• Understand the concept and nature of motivational speaking.
• Apply a four-step motivational method with the purpose of persuading and inspiring.
• Deliver a motivational speech to persuade an audience to emotionally commit to an action
• TIME : 15 to 20 minutes – longer if club program allows.

Note to the Evaluator:
The purpose of this presentation was for the speaker to deliver a 15- to 20-minute motivational speech designed to persuade and inspire an audience to achieve personal success. The delivery should have an abundance of vivid word pictures and use of dynamic gestures. In addition to your oral evaluation, please write answers to the questions below.

For more information:
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