Reflecting on this specific speech allows me to touch on some advanced topics that are easy to master and distinguish you as a speaker and increase the effectiveness of your visual aids.  Here are some specific recommendations I have for Kurt Warner to take his speech from the Get Motivated seminar from great to incredible.

Things Kurt Water did that were Great:

In response to a welcoming thunderous applause, his opening line was perfect: “a great crowd like this makes me want to play again.”  As expected this generated uproar of cheer from the audience.  His opening set the tone and the spirit of the speech; Kurt quickly established a light-hearted rapport with the audience.

There was a notable balance of humor throughout his speech.  Kurt shared a story of how hyper-competitive he is as an individual – even while playing video games with his own children – that one time his wife scolded him “do you always have to make your 6yr old cry?”  Later while distinguishing his children from one-another, he told the story of his daughter that demonstrated how much of a determined soul is.  How she scaled a rickety tower of kitchen furniture in order to reach the cookie jar atop the pantry, and when she crashed to the floor hurting herself (with a cookie still firmly in hand) he proclaimed “YES – I’ve got one!  I’ve got one willing to sacrifice everything for what she wants.”  Beyond a great storytelling technique, humor is one universal way to establish and maintain a connection with your audience.

Kurt laid out a clear and simple chronology of events to take the audience on a journey through his lift: playing football as kids, only wanting “WARNER” on his jersey, and how his vision developed and guided his choices in life.  Most of our lives are dictated by time and event, so it’s natural to interpret inferred timelines into a story line the audience can easily follow along with.

His Call-To-Action was clear, deliberate and contained.  Well contained by framing it with the question “Do you want to be the Best?” and them immediately followed by “Here are the Two-Things you must do…”  People like lists, short lists.  Audiences are more likely to feel empowered and activated by a list of three or less near-impossible-things, than they would given a catalog of 18 easy-steps-to-success.

Things to help You or Kurt Warner become one of the Best:

Remember to STOP.  Stop talking, stop walking, stop breathing.  Pause – every now and then – to draw attention.  This is one technique that is easy to rehearse and will have a huge impact on the delivery of your message.  Pausing gets attention.  Use it right after saying something profound.  This  allows your audience to process and appreciate what you have just said.  You can use it immediately before saying something important.  This allows your audience to clear their thoughts and prepare for revelation.  Moreover, it serves to draw in the attention of those perhaps briefly distracted.  Want to pack an even bigger punch?  Right before your dramatic pause, say “here’s the most important thing I’ve learned…” or “if you remember only one thing from my speech today, remember this… ”  This technique can be used to exploit the audience attention and accentuate your point.

Eventually, take your hands out of your pockets.  Having one hand in your pocket can be a disarming approach in early stages of your speech: establishing authenticity with the audience as an everyday-kinda-guy.  Once you’ve done that – pull it out.  Meaning, once you have established the tone (personable, comfortable and relaxed) use both hands to gesture while you’re speaking.  This will increase your visual effectiveness as you move throughout your speech.

Put the slide show remote down. This will free up both hands to accentuate your gestures and not risk accidentally advancing the slide before you are ready.  Note: when you do this, incorporate part of your natural movement to make your way back to the lectern to operate the remote – you don’t want it to seem unnatural.  If this is uncomfortable, consider at least putting it down after you have reached the final slide – it serves no further purpose.

In my opinion, hiring Kurt Warner to speak at your local event or next business conference is worth every penny.  I look forward to his incredible speaking career here in the Valley Of The Sun and around the world.

-SpeakUpBrian

(Bonus)

Below are some demonstrated techniques to improve the effectiveness of Visual Aids (Powerpoint slides).  On the left are pictures I took from my front row floor seats of the slides Kurt used.  On the right are versions of the same slide that I built from scratch using full screen imagery and consistent high-contract embedded text to amplify the intended message.

Kurt Warner Original Slides . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Reproduced Slides

I’ve been to a dozen weddings.  About half of them as a guest, the other half as the Videographer, and then my wedding.  Every one of them has memorable moments about the budding Bride and the dashing Groom.  But I’m always anxious to hear the Toasts, especially the Best Man Toast.  Not to disqualify the toast from the Maid of Honor where the specific purpose it to exalt the beautiful bride – and to justify why she is the maid of honor – the Best Man Toast carries some serious expectations.  This blog post contains my hints and tips to help you Best Man candidates to SpeakUp!

Those of you who know me, know I like to summarize into threes or fives, but mostly threes.  Here’s my Top3 for the Best Man speech that will leave wedding guests praising your efforts: (1) Give Thanks, (2) Break Him Down then Build Him Up, and (3) Deliver the Perfect Toast.

#1) Give Thanks:

One of your primary goals is to say Thank You to everyone on the behalf of Wedding.  The Bride and Groom will have already made their rounds speaking with all the guests individually and thanking them. It’s your job to bring everyone back together.  Moreover, this is your opportunity to deliver special thanks to those special guests.

If social media has convinced me of anything it’s that people want to feel connected and they want to feel missed.  Spend time really talking with people at the wedding. Find those special folks who have traveled far, those who have struggled long, or perhaps those whose attendance bears a special meaning to the wedding.  Seek direction from the Bride and Groom and their parents – this can also be done ahead of time. Take notes about the specifics and the facinating characteristics of each person and story.

Build your opening to include Giving Thanks.  Say thank you to everyone who came, the parents, and those special guests; “Granny ___ who…”, “Uncle ____ that…”, and “believe it or not, ____ came…”.  This is a great way to make those people feel special, but also makes all who attended feel more connected. Remember to recognize those guests that wanted to attend but could not.  Chances are these days they’ll see video of your speech on-line and feel connected even though they weren’t even there.

#2) Break Him Down then Build Him Up:

Everyone (including the groom) expects you to embarrass the groom – don’t let your audience down.  I’m not advocating projecting digital pictures on the wall from the Bachelor Party taken on your Blackberry, or intimate details of how you were there for him during those nervous days waiting for his test results to come back from the lab…

You are the best man for a reason – you have the best stories about the man! Choose some of his abnormal behaviors or distracting idiosyncrasies to point fun of in a lighthearted way.  Additional points scored if you choose ones that he has since dropped or overcome since meeting his bride.  See my nephew Eli’s speech (on YouTube @2:25s) break down his brother Alexis during the Best Man Toast.

You probably know him better than anyone else at the wedding, so your words carry a lot of credibility. Describe how he is a changed man since meeting his soul mate; not only why his hygiene and fashion scene are better, but also how love has changed him and why you’re convinced his bride indeed has made him a better man.

#3) Deliver the Perfect Toast:

As you near the end of your speech, pause.  Let the audience know that you’ll be soon asking them to raise their glasses and join you in a toast.  This will give everyone time to make sure the glasses are full.  Don’t be lazy and use a worn-out cliché like “Here’s to the Bride and Groom” or “Cheers”.  Moreover, do NOT copy something verbatim from the Internet.

Instead, spend some time thinking about those unique characteristics that the happy couple share: their work as musicians, how they met at church, or the passion they share for spelunking.  Use those attributes to write a more specific meaningful toast, like this excerpt taken from the Toastmasters International project Mastering The Toast:

“Elizabeth and Brian, we hope your life together will be similar to the music you love.  May you both always play in the same key and may your troubles be minor and your joys major.  We hope for a harmony, with no sharp words or flat moments.  Take turns playing the solo part and occasionally lend the other an accompaniment. 

“Now let us drink to our two musicians.  May Elizabeth and Brian make beautiful music together!”

So if you’re the Best Man, consider these Top3 (1) Give Thanks, (2) Break Him Down then Build Him Up, and (3) Deliver the Perfect Toast, and you’ll be a SpeakUp hero too.

–SpeakUpBrian

 (Bonus) Open with a Bang!

Grab their attention with your opening.  Be it something profound or something hilarious, your opening line will set the tone of the speech and dictate how much each audience member will give your speech.  Our neighbor’s daughter Stacey married last year and the opening of the Best Man Toast was one of the most memorable I’ve heard:

“Fornication such as this,…”

<pulls out his notes and feverishly examines them for accuracy>

“Sorry.  For An Occasion such as this,…”

I plan to learn more about how people communicate, how they can communicate better, and how they can become better communicators.  I will coach others to improve their communication skills, learn to be a better coach, and coach others to become coaches.  Confused?  Me too…

What to expect from this Blog: Useful ideas you can use from my journal entries reflecting on the triumphs and failures of speeches, presentations, rants and public addresses.

My qualifications are few and far between.  My adolescent obsessions with high school girls and the Commodore-64 left little time for gaining command of the English language.  I can’t tell you if I’ve ever conjagated a verb successfully without misspelling conjugated, and I often speak in colloquialisms foreign to my cohorts.  I didn’t finish High School and the MATH portion on my SAT was the primary reason I could even got into College after starting a family.  Moreover, my wife stared at me in disbelief when I announced that Communication was one of my top five strengths identified in my Strengths Finder 2.0 results.  However, what I do have is an unbridled passion of improving my own communication skills and the communication effectiveness of others.  I’m an avid Toastmaster who served as President of our corporate club in 2008 growing it to the largest in the state of Arizona.  I teach Presentation Skills classes inside the large company I work at and teach a six-week class outside in the real world.  I have also been fortunate enough to provide coaching advice to some Corporate VPs, Professional Athletes, Sr. Public Officials and even the Arizona Cardinals Cheerleaders (twist-my-arm).

At best, I hope you’ll visit this blog and pickup something of value.  At worst, I hope its at least mildly entertaining.

–SpeakUpBrian!