In the pre-virus, semi-sane world from a few months ago the galaxy’s best speakers ruled the stage at all the premiere meetings.

Their weapon of choice? Signature stories.

Professional speakers spend years building, crafting and fine-tuning their signature stories. They are often detailed and lengthy with a huge moral lesson at the end that cements the presenter’s message. They are wonderful. Inspiring. Life-changing.

But those fancy-pants stories don’t work that well online.

Online people are busy, distracted and want instant content. So, the signature story has to be reworked, re-tweaked and polished for the new medium.

This is exactly the type of content I will dive deep into in my upcoming 4-Day Live MasterClass: How to Deliver Brilliant Online Pitches and Presentations.

Stories are a presenter’s most powerful tool, but if none of the goldfish minded attendees on your webinar are paying attention, what good do they do?

So, I invite you to learn about stories, audiences, confidence, structure, openings, closings, on-camera presence, studio equipment, PowerPoint and a gazillion other techniques and strategies for the brave new world of online.

Go here to find out more and register: https://ready2speak.com

• 4 live, 1-hour presentations delivered over 4 consecutive days with live Q&A
• Begins Monday, July 13, 2020
• If you can’t make it, everything is recorded for later viewing
• Sign up closes Saturday, Midnight ET July 11, 2020
• There is a sizable discount coupon and a no risk guarantee.

Go. Register. Become an online presentation superhero.

Your success is waiting patiently.

Tom

I imagine I will get a lot of push back for the first part of this. Bring it. There’s a point to be made later on about presenting, if you will indulge me.

You shouldn’t buy lottery tickets.

This isn’t about spending your hard-earned money on a losing proposition. This isn’t even about whether or not the government should be taking money from the people who can least afford it.

This is about a much more insidious evil that buying a lottery ticket inflicts on our minds.

It gives us a Plan B.

If you believe, like I do, that to be anything or accomplish anything worthwhile in this world you have to be “all in”, then you will realize that buying a lottery ticket gives you an out. It steals just a tiny bit of your psychic energy. Your power of focus.

You are the commander of your life, your success and your future. In spite of all the bad that could happen (and as we have recently seen, there is lots), you are still in control if you want it.

Buying a lottery ticket sets up a little loop in your mind that says if this real-world thing doesn’t work out, maybe, just maybe, I can win the big one. The gods may pity me and send me a million bucks.

Here’s what this has to do with presenting – especially now that we are confronted with this tipped upside-down world.

I love speaking — in-person, standing before and speaking to a bunch of live, breathing people is the best high there is. When you can offer something of value that changes lives you are snorting some serious mojo.

That’s gone right now. For a while.

I, we need to get over it. It ain’t coming back for a while. And the longer we pine away, we are sucking our focus from using this amazing new tool we have – online.

I know there are a lot of negatives to a Zoom meeting. A lot. But it is the new tool. Online presentation is the hammer we have right now and if we embrace it’s abilities and functions, get really, really good at it and forget about “when things open up” we will be way ahead in the race to live again.

Do ya think just one Powerball ticket would hurt?

To your success,
Tom

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New Course Sessions will be all live streamed…

First off, a big thank you to everyone who participated in my latest course about presenting well online. THANK YOU ALL!

Due to multiple requests the next session of my 4-Day course – “Secrets to Delivering Brilliant Online Pitches and Presentations” will be all LIVE STREAMED. Each day’s lessons will be in a live webinar format – approximately 1-hour long. Attendees will be encouraged to ask questions for immediate feedback or to email questions for an email response.

If you can’t make it — it will all be recorded and online for you to review at any time.

Much will stay the same:

• Extensive MasterClass content delivered on 4 consecutive days (each webinar will be approximately an hour)
• Pretty much anything you need or want to know so that you can become a top-notch online presenter
• Live Q&A will be included
• If you can’t make it…Everything will be recorded and available for 1 year.
• Webinars begin Monday, July 13, 2020 for 4 consecutive days
• Registration closes Midnight ET, Saturday, July 11
• Extra Low fee (plus a $50 discount)

More info later but if you can’t wait, go to https://Ready2Speak.com to get full information and to register.

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Are you a Non-Profit Organization? Want to attend my course at no fee? There are limited slots in my upcoming course for those on my list who are part of nonprofit organizations who could benefit from enhancing their online presentation skills.

Please contact me at Tom@Ready2Speak.com to make arrangements.

I am sometimes cranky. Hmmmm. OK – often cranky.

But sometimes, with good reason.

Coaching presenters in the live, non-online world, I would tell them that fumbling with their laptop to get their PowerPoint running when in front of their audiences is an amateur move.

Plus, it is so easy to correct and the effect is substantial.

Imagine a speaker being introduced, then stepping to the front of the room. They mumble something about “hanging on for a second” while they get their Windows ’95 laptop working.

Five minutes later they find the file, load it and get it projected on the screen. Opps… wrong file.

Bad form.

Now imagine that same presenter stepping up and starting powerfully and effortlessly with just a click of the ol’ clicker.

That’s a pro move.

We can almost do a similar deal online. Almost. And it will also make us look like the cool, seasoned professional that we are.

Let’s say you are being introduced in a Zoom presentation. Have your PowerPoint loaded and ready to go. Turn off all the other apps in the background. Then when you share, switch to the PowerPoint screen, punch in presenter mode and you are off and running.

Smooth move.

It’s all about looking your best and smoking your competition.

To your success,
Tom, Ready2Speak.com

“Welcome to the WXYZ Evening Eyewitness News.”

“We have a lot to cover: A Newtown baby drives her family car to get an oil change. Elderly women finds her old handbag with 10,000 dollars in it. And you won’t believe what these squirrels did to the inside of this garage.”

“So, let’s get right to it…”

The consultants at WXYZ invented clickbait long before the Inter Web. They knew their job, the job of the news, was to keep eyeballs glued to the set so their viewers would see each and every commercial.

They use these little incomplete teasers at the beginning of the newscast and before every commercial.

They will often figure out what the most teaseable story is and re-tease it before every break knowing or hoping you will stay locked into the TV.

It is pretty shameless and almost as bad as the clickbait we all see on just about every website.

These days, especially online, people are so easily distracted. As online presenters, we can use this technique, without being quite so sleazy or manipulative, to keep our audience focused on our message.

It might sound like this:

“Blah, blah, blah. By the way, if you stick with me through this presentation, I have a special downloadable gift for you at the end. More blah, blah, blah.”

Or you could format your content to accomplish a similar objective.

“Today, I will show you the top five ways you can use the common banana to decorate your favorite hat.”

Everyone, of course, will want to stick around to hear all five valuable ways to accomplish this critical task.

You don’t have to be quite so slimy as Joe TV-Boy when you promise something valuable at the end of your presentation. Just be honest, tell your audience you have a reward for them and make sure it was worth their kind attention.

Now stay tuned for my next email: 10 Ways to Have Perfect Strangers Paint Your House.

To your success,

Tom, Ready2Speak.com

P.S. Let’s get really good at this online presentation thing and smoke our competition. OK?

My 4-Day Crash Course: How to Present Online is loaded with all the step-by-step strategies and techniques you need to succeed in our new virtual presentation world. Just the thing you need to stand head and shoulders above the wannabees and the lazy.

It’s ridiculously cheap. Go to https://ready2speak.com and check it out.

It will be available starting Monday, June 15th. I will give you 50% off for pre-registration, this week only.

Besides all the great info you will get 5 amazing bonuses that are worth the price all by themselves. And there is a no-risk guarantee, if you are still unsure.

Go to https://ready2speak.com and use the code 4DAY50 for your discount.

Your online success is waiting…

Question and answer sessions. Arrrrg! If it’s a live in-person presentation, sooner or later we all have to do them – tacked on to the low energy end of an hour-long presentation.

You have wound down your talk, given your three closing points, put up the slide with your contact information and then opened up the floor for disaster.

Oh, the first two questions are ok. Usually specific, direct and on point. Then there is always a guy (no gender intended) who wants to tell you a long story their brother experienced that is just slightly relevant to your topic. Or there is the guy who wants to pick a philosophical fight about the tiniest part of your presentation.

Then there is someone who wants to tell you about their cat. (This has never really happened, but it could)

When you are in front of a live audience, question and answer sessions are where your well-planned presentation goes to die a slow, miserable low-energy death.

I am sure you can just see all the attendees streaming out of your presentation as the room drains of its life blood.

In an online talk, the effect is even worse. No one has to sneak out. They just leave. In droves.

There is a very cool way to not only negate this but use Q&A time to your advantage when you are online: Sprinkle some mini Q&As throughout.

Every 5-15 minutes when you make a shift, finish a section or just change your pace think about pausing for a quick question and answer session.

Marketing note: This is just the type of actionable, ready-to-go techniques and ideas I offer in my latest online 4-Day Crash Course: How to Present Online (see below).

There are a bunch of ways to manage and fine-tune this technique for online presentations that we will dive into. But in your quest to keep everyone on their toes and involved with your presentation, this idea is a million times better than that stampede-inducing closing Q&A deal we all hate.

To your success,

Tom, Ready2Speak.com

P.S. My shiny new 4-Day Crash Course: How to Present Online is loaded with all the step-by-step strategies and techniques you need to succeed in our new virtual presentation world.

It’s ridiculously cheap. Go to https://ready2speak.com and check it out.

Ready to get on board? It will be available starting Monday, June 15th. I will give you 50% off for pre-registration, this week only.

Besides all the great info you will get 5 amazing bonuses that are worth the price all by themselves. And there is a no-risk guarantee, if you are still unsure.

Go to https://ready2speak.com and use the code 4DAY50 for your discount.

Your online success is waiting…