MC'ing events and conferences at the top professional level is a real blast. The fundamental key is to make everyone else look like stars...then you'll shine along with them. Forget the 'Do's and Don'ts' lists - think positively, and just do the 'Do's'! Do: Research the event. The more information you have, the more relaxed you will be and pr

This one tends to be a bigger problem for the platform speaker from what I've seen, than for anyone else. It can certainly be true of any information marketer, but here's what I've seen happen frequently from platform speakers. They get the audience stirred up (in a good way), and folks are rushing to the sales table to order Speaker X's package

A good storyteller is a person who has a good memory and hopes other people don't. --Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb Let me share with you what I've learned about what to do and not to do on a book tour by sharing my experiences. I'm sure you can do better with a little advance warning and preparation. Having heard that authors go on book tours whe

If you are like most people you would like to make all your problems go dead in the water. This means that you would like to make all your bills or anything else that is giving you a headache to just go away. People will do almost anything to make money to get rid of one bill or another. They sometimes do things that could get them in bigger fi

The right voice over talent can make a huge difference in media. In fact, some voices become as famous as the products or people they represent. For example, all you need is the right intonation to make people think of Donald Duck, Kermit the Frog, or Bugs Bunny. Whether you need someone to narrate for a documentary, a story, a commercial, or a ca

Just do it. --Nike advertisement Many times we are asked to express ideas that no one has thought about before. What's a good way to do this? Story tellers rely on letting people use their imagination. To do that, they often start with phrases like "Once upon a time . . ." that empower us to sit back and dream a bit. For a nonfiction su

Does it really matter if you have got a speech written that you are sure is mind-blowing? Well, to be honest, it does. It takes a lot more than just matter to fire up an audience. You need to grab them by their eyes and ears as well as their minds. The visual sense is the first that comes into play. So your appearance is crucial. While looking grea

Art is lone, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient. --Goethe (adapting the words of Hippocrates) In September 1995, I made the most important (and perhaps the only important) speech of my career when I introduced the 400 Year Project (a program to help everyone learn how to accomplish 20 times as much with the same time, mone

No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next. --Edgar Watson Howe Speaking is an art. But when we think like the audience, it becomes a conversation. Let me share an example to show what I mean. I was about to announce the beginning of a 20 year project to find ways to speed the rate of individual improvements by