Presentation Skills: Funny Sounds

Some words are simply funnier than others. Your word choice can be the key to creating a successful witty line or a dud. All professional comedy writers agree on the following fact. The sound of certain words can virtually guarantee a laugh. In particular, the 'K' sound in words is the granddaddy of all funny sounds. In Neil Simon's play, The Sunshine Boys, Willy, a main character, gives his nephew a lecture about comedy:

"Fifty-seven years in this business, you learn a few things. You know what words are funny and which words are not funny. Alka Seltzer is funny. You say "Alka Seltzer" you get a laugh . . . Words with "k" in them are funny. Casey Stengel, that's a funny name. Robert Taylor is not funny. Cupcake is funny. Tomato is not funny. Cookie is funny. Cucumber is funny. Car keys. Cleveland . . . Cleveland is funny. Maryland is not funny. Then, there's chicken. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny."

Someone actually researched why the 'k' sound is funny. It has something to do with the sounds we, as babies, associated with comfort. Like cootchie-coo, cuddle, cozy, etc. Note that these words don't have a 'K' in them, but they have the 'K' sound.

Examples:

Those turkeys over at XYA (remember no Z's allowed) company can't hold a candle to our team of installers.

I'll bet you a cupcake to a cucumber the blue team will outsell the gold team.

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Great Public Speaking: Places

Some places are simply funnier than others. Cleveland is funny. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is funny. I live just off Goodluck Road. That's funny. My computer consultant used to live on Easy Street in Temple Hills, Maryland. That's funny. It was hard to find him because people were always stealing the sign, and it's not easy to steal an Easy Street sign.

I guarantee that if you pick up any map that has city or street names on it, within a few seconds, you will find a funny name. If you look at it for a few minutes, you'll find many.

I just picked up my road atlas and opened it to the USA and Canada maps in the front. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, almost jumped off the page and into my word processor. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, wasn't far behind along with Kalamazoo, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; Schenectady, New York; and one of my favorites, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Now, I'm going to open the street map for Lanham, Maryland, where this brilliant article is being created. I told you I live off Goodluck Road and I see that a few blocks away from my house is Elvis Lane in Presley Manor. About a mile away is Lois Lane (I guess Superman visits there regularly) and I recently did some work in Boniwood. That isn't funny to you, but it was a scream around our office because my assistant's name is Bonnie. Humor is literally waiting for you just around the corner!

Besides cities and roads, you have at your disposal an unlimited number of funny names related to restaurants, hotels and stores like Pigly Wiggly, Kangaroo Katies, Motel 6, The Colonels Kentucky Fried Chicken, and K Mart.

Learn More Great Public Speaking Humor!

Public Speaking: Really Look at the Results to Improve

When you are speaking in public, don't be so enamored by the words coming out of your mouth that you forget to eliminate those that are not necessary. Few people are upset by speeches that end a little early.

By reading your transcribed messages instead of just listening to your own voice, you will find it easier to eliminate unnecessary content, sharpen faulty grammar, and rework key phrasing. While you're at it, you may find new and spontaneous stories, humor lines, or phrases that worked!

Don't leave such successes to chance; work on perfecting the content for future talks. Write down new material in a journal or computer file. The palest pencil mark is better than your best memory. Don't script every word, just keep working and reworking your material.

Learn to start a public speaking business!

Public Speaking: Microphone Tips

If you are speaking in any venue that is larger than an average
sized classroom or conference room, I strongly suggest using a
microphone to prevent vocal strain. There are two types of
microphones you are likely to encounter. The first is a lavaliere
mic that clips to your lapel or collar. This type of microphone
usually has a battery pack, which you attach to your waistband,
allowing you to move about freely. When wearing a lavaliere,
speak conversationally with the same amount of volume and vocal
projection you would use to address a small group. The amplifier
will do the rest. Make sure you turn your mic off when you are
not on the platform to avoid sharing private comments with the
rest of the audience.

The second type of microphone is hand held or fixed to a stand or
podium. With this type of microphone, popping can be a problem.
Popping is caused when "plosives" like 'p','t', and 'd' are
spoken and the air from your mouth hits the mic. To prevent
popping, position the mic about a hands width away and slightly
below your mouth so that the air from your mouth does not hit the
microphone. Speaking above the mic will also help prevent nasal
noise. Keeping the mic about a hands width away from your mouth
will also help prevent a "boom-y" sound.

Take Your Speaking To The Next Level!

Public Speaking: Handout Tips

=> USE A LARGE FONT. It makes more impact and is easier to read.
It also makes your handout larger which makes it appear more
substantial.

=> LEAVE LOTS OF WHITE SPACE. I had a complaint recently that
said there was not enough space to write notes. I usually deliver
very high content so this was clearly a mistake on my part in not
leaving enough space for notes.

=> PUT CONTACT INFORMATION ON EVERY PAGE. You never know when
people will tear out a page or photocopy a single page of your
handout. Putting your info on every page makes sure whoever sees
any page of your handout can contact you.

=> PUT IMPORTANT RESOURCES ON EVERY PAGE. If you want people to
keep your handout make sure each page has some important resource
that an audience member cannot do without. When you put all the
resources on one page it makes it easy for someone to tear it out
and throw the rest of your handout away.

=> USE A TEAR OFF ACTION ITEM PAGE. Make it the last page so it's
easy to tear off at the beginning of the seminar or speech. Have
the attendees use it for those special aha's they get. You can
then have them say some of their items aloud which reinforces the
value you are giving.

Learn To Promote Yourself As A Public Speaker!

Presentation Skills: Write Down Their Blurbs

One of the smartest things you can do is to be ready to write
down or audio tape things the audience yells out to you when you
are having fun with them. These lines can be used by you in
future speeches.

One of my stories is about a riches to rags story that I lived. I
build up the story of how I lost a whole bunch of money in a
failed business and then I injured my leg and was bedridden, and
then my girlfriend left me and I finish that part of the story
saying, "and my dog got run over." One time when I told the story
someone yelled out from the crowd something about the dog went on
to write a country music song which obviously referred to all the
doom and gloom I was suffering. This got a BIG laugh.

In future speeches, to relieve the tension of people thinking
that the dog got killed, I used the line, "Don't worry he's OK
and went on to write a country music hit" which always gets a
good laugh.

Always be ready for this when you have a really fun loving crowd.
One way to be sure that you remember the line after the speech is
over is to stop right then and jot the note down while saying
something to the person yelling out the line, "Would you repeat
that because it's funnier than my line / story etc." which will
get a laugh and make the audience member the star.

This is really a win win because you really do need to write
things down when they are fresh because you are likely to forget
them after the speech (especially if you are not audio taping)
and also because you get an interaction with the audience and
another laugh line out of the situation.

Improve Your Public Speaking Humor The Easy Way!

Public Speaking Media Marketing

Media marketing is really a fun way to market because with
the electronic methods of reaching out today, you do not have
to face much rejection because your prospects call you. They
call you after being pre-qualified because they have either:
A.) Heard you on the radio, B.) Seen you on TV, C.) Read an
article "by" you, D.) Read an article "about" you E.) Read a
comment you were asked to make because you are the "expert"
on a particular topic.

Whenever someone calls after having been exposed to you in
the media the entire nature of the phone call changes. You
are not trying to find out if they need your services, or if
they have money. In many cases they call and ask, "do you speak"
or "are you available to speak?"

Over the past year I have created much more reference
information for you that will make your media marketing
efforts much easier to implement. They will also teach you
how to be "great" when you appear in the media. Here are my
recommendations from the Kick Series of TeleSeminars:

# 4 Kick Start Your Media Marketing: How to Get Speaking
Clients to Call You by Tom Antion

# 7 Kick Up a Media Storm: How to Get FREE or REALLY CHEAP
Publicity"
With special guest "The Publicity Hound" Joan Stewart

# 8. Kick the Ears off Your Audience: How to Be GREAT
on the Radio
With special guest "The Radio Genius" Joel Roberts

# 9. "Kick Through Your Database to Sell Tons of Products
& Services on the Radio"
With special guest, "Mr. Radio Database" Joe Sabah

Public Speaking: It's A Love/Hate Thing

Extremes of opinion make a much greater impact on an audience
than taking a middle of the road stance in an effort to please
everyone. I've done over 2700 paid presentations and more no fee
talks than I care to remember. The one big thing I have learned
over the years is that the people that try to please everyone,
rarely move anyone to action.

I'm not saying to go out and try to offend people. I'm saying to
take a stance and be clear about it. Here's an example: I have no
problem saying in most presentations that I "hate" politics. I
think to be good at politics by definition you have to be two
faced. To be great at politics you have to be four faced. You
simply can't win an important election by clearly being in favor
or against an issue because you have to please both sides as much
as you can to win.

You might ask, "Tom how would you keep from being stoned off the
platform at a political rally?" My answer would be that I can't
imagine being hard up enough to accept a speech at a political
rally. You have to be able to say no when the audience is on the
opposite side of the fence from your value system. . . Of course,
if the money was good enough . . . hahahahaha just kidding.

What if the mayor was at one of my events? I would make sure I
knew about it and just keep my mouth shut about politics. I would
consider it stepping over the line to make it a point to
embarrass or single out someone at an event. In most cases you
are better off avoiding controversial topics like politics
anyway.

OK I just talked about a topic to the negative. Now let's switch
to the positive. Audiences want to know what you really like. I
might say I "love" my new recumbent bicycle. Since Tom is
single I can get out on my bike and lose myself in the smell of
fresh cut fields on a deserted country road. I could go on and on
about how much I "love" my bike. I don't just say I enjoy
bicycling. I really let them know what I'm passionate about.

Use extremes of language and you will impact the audience much
more than by riding that bike down the middle of the road.

Learn To Make A Fortune Being A Public Speaker!

Public Speaking: Electronic Infrastructure

In past issues ( http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues.htm )
I have given you lots of ways to market yourself, your
products, and your services electronically. To do this
efficiently requires some basic infrastructure in the form
of computer hardware and software and a connection to the
Internet.

You probably have the hardware already. A basic computer with
a modem and scanner pretty much does the trick. If you want
to make your work a little easier, these additions might help.

=> A bigger monitor will make the time you spend in front
of the computer easier on the eyes.
=> Buy all the RAM you can afford.
=> A wheel mouse will save some strain on your mouse finger.
=> A small network of several computers could be more
efficient if you have several people working at the same time.

SOFTWARE
For software, spending some money can give you some real time
savings AND also give you critical information that you may not
even know you needed. For instance, I spent about $400.00 on a
sophisticated, but easy to use bulk email program. This program
does in seconds what used to take me hours to complete. So my
dollar investment allows me to do email marketing that would have
been too cumbersome to do with regular email programs.

Being able to update and / or create your own website is the best
single investment in time and money I ever made in my career. I
use Front Page 2000 to create and maintain my website which would
have cost me nearly $50,000.00 had I paid for all the work and
updates. Front Page costs less than $150.00 and I spent about a
$1000.00 for advanced training spread out over two years. It took
me about a month and a half part time getting competent with the
program. I would say the time spent was really worth it. I can
have an idea and six minutes later have it in front of a world
market PLUS the frustration I saved from avoiding dealing with
webdesigners was worth at least a million bucks.

STATISTICS
Getting statistics on your website is critical. The statistics
will tell you how much traffic you are getting, how long they
are staying and where they are coming from. This information
is necessary to make your site pay off. Too many speakers have a
beautiful website that no one visits or buys from. I use
"WebTrends" as my statistics package which is provided to me by
my Internet Service Provider. Check with your provider to see if
they include a statistics package with your hosting fee. If not,
get one. Ask your host for a recommendation and learn how to use
and interpret your results.

There are other software programs you can get like "Web Position
Gold" that will tell you where the search engines are placing
you and teach you how to maximize your pages to get high
rankings.

Once you get all these systems in place and learn how to use
them you are in a position to really skyrocket your electronic
marketing.

Learn to market yourself on the Internet!

Public Speaking: Fake Phone Calls

This is so much fun.

I keep my cell phone with me when I'm on stage and I either have
someone call me while I'm in the middle of the presentation, or I
just pretend the phone is vibrating and I have to answer the
call.

Since the audience can't hear the person calling, you could fake
the entire conversation if you wanted to.

Just recently I had the organizer call me on stage just as I was
giving a small discount if the audience members wanted to buy my
back-of-the-room package. The organizer was telling me that the
discount I was giving was not good enough.

We started arguing about it on the phone which was making the
audience members laugh.

Note: If you've listened to my 2 hour album on "Selling a Ton at
the Back-of-the-Room" you know that having the audience laughing
in the middle of your close is a very good thing.

I gave in and dropped the price a little more on the package I was
selling.

Immediately the phone rang again, with the organizer telling me
that wasn't good enough. We had another argument and now the
audience was really laughing.

I gave in again and dropped the price to the rock bottom and sold
a ton.

You could pretend your mother or father is calling and nagging
you about something. Or you could make up just about anyone that
will allow you to make your part of the conversation funny to the
audience.

Make good use of your cell phone while you are on stage
and those will be some of the most valuable minutes you ever
used.

Tom Antion Speaking: Delivering The Punch Line

Most jokes are designed to end with a humorous climactic
word or phrase. Here's an example from Larry Wilde's book
"Library of Laughter:"

I can't understand why you failed in business.
Too much advertising.
You never spent a cent in your life on advertising.
That's true, but my competitor did.

Everything in the joke up to the comma after "That's true"
is the setup of the joke. "But my competitor did" is the
punch line. The punch line gets its name from the delivery
technique used. You must punch the line out a little harder
and with a slightly different voice than the rest of the
joke. Lean into the microphone and say it louder and more
clearly than you said the setup lines. If the audience does
not hear the punch line, they are not going to laugh.

Just before the punch line you should pause slightly (to
emphasize and draw special attention to the line. After you
deliver the line, don't utter another sound. Give the
audience a chance to laugh. Words or phrases appended to the
climax tend to delay or impede laughter. Until you get some
experience, it is really tough to wait. Beginners tend to be
afraid that no laughter will come, so they keep going. If
you keep talking during this period, you will easily squelch
the laughter. As your confidence builds, pausing will become
easier and easier. Sometimes waiting the audience out will
actually give them a cue to laugh even if the joke wasn't
that great.

When you deliver your punch line, deliver it to one person
and one person only. It doesn't matter how large the crowd
is, you can look one person right in the eye and deliver
your line. Learn to use humor effectively with my Ultimate
Public Speaking Business Package - Free shipping!

Public Speaking: Background Music

Background music playing when participants enter a room is a
great way to set the mood for a NO ZZZZZs meeting or event.
It also makes you look like a more polished presenter. The
proper selection of music gets people in the right mood and
adds a touch of drama to the presentation. You can also use
music when the participants are leaving to give them a
pleasant atmosphere as they exit. Avoid turning music on or
off suddenly. It should always fade in and fade out slowly.

When selecting music, generally you would pick upbeat music
for upbeat presentations and slower music for more serious
ones. This is very subjective, but not usually too critical
unless you're the type who would play loud rock music at a
retirement home. If you have no clue how to pick music, get
some expert help or buy music designed for presentations
from a training supply company that has labels that tell you
when to use it.

If you are on a tight budget and can't arrange for
professional sound equipment, don't worry. In small rooms a
decent boom box will suffice. If you are in a larger room,
you can put the microphone that will be used for the
presentation in front of the speaker of the boom box. This
will send the music through the room's sound system.

BIG WARNING: DO NOT PLAY COPYRIGHTED MUSIC WITHOUT THE
PROPER LICENSING OR YOU WILL BE SORRY. THE MUSIC POLICE WILL
GET YOU.

Learn To Make BIG Money With Public Speaking!

Public Speaking Scam: Beware of this email letter

**This letter is being emailed to numerous public speakers.
The church knows of none such person or event. Please beware!**


Dear Tom Antion,

My Name is Rev.Fred Collins from the London Youth Community Here in
London UK. We want you to be our guest Speak at this Year LONDON YOUTH
CONFERENCE which will take place here in UK.We are writing to invite
and confirm your booking to be our guest speaker at these year.We want
all LONDON YOUTH to come close to GOD and realize the future is in their
hands. That is why we intend to use these conference to turn them away
from the illicit behavior.

LONDON YOUTH CONFERENCE.
The Venue as follows:
VENUE: Holy Apostles Church Hall,
47 Cumberland Street,
Pimlico London, SW1V 4LY
Website.www.londonyouthconference.com (CURRENTLY UPDATING) Expected
audience: 3500 people Duration of speech per speaker: 1 Hour Name of
Church/Organization: LONDON YOUTH CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY,
Topic: HONESTY AND TRUE/RELATIONSHIP
Date:19th of September 2009-23rd of September 2009.


We came across your profile on http://www.time4somethingelse.com and we
say it's up to standard and we will be very glad to have such an
outstanding personality in our mist for these overwhelming gathering.
With your multi talented speech more lives will come close to GOD, Sorry
about our late invitation it is due to the fact that our Speaker had
back out because of her sudden illness.

Arrangements to welcome you here will be discussed as soon as you honor
our invitation. If you have any more publicity material, please do not
hesitate to contact me. A formal Letter of invitation and contract
agreement would be sent to you as soon as you honor our invitation. We
are taking care of your traveling and Hotel Accommodation expenses
including your Speaking fee.

Stay Blessed
Rev.Fred Collins
www.londonyouthconference.com
LONDON YOUTH CONFERENCE