There are few of us who, at at one time or another, have either exaggerated or shaded the truth by either bragging or playing down a story. What we say may not be an untruth, but we want to emphasize one fact to a certain party, and a different fact to another. The same bragging or playing down can appear artfully in many types of charts.

Then he coached Anne Brennan, a woman with no speaking experience whatsoever, to win a standing ovation at the Liberal Democratic Party annual conference by using rhetorical techniques. Overnight, Max became an in-demand presentation coach and eventually left academic life to teach rhetorical presenting techniques to business people. In his book, Lend Me Your Ears he shares those techniques. Max Atkinson claims there’s no magic to it. There’s no need to go to a quote book.

Most of us really hate it when a speaker reads from her PowerPoint slides, but we may not know exactly why (besides the fact that she keeps her back to us the whole time and speaks like a robot). In the extreme, some people move their lips when reading, but for most of us, subvocalizing is undetectable without sensitive equipment. Tags: Pet Peeves Public Speaking More on PowerPoint . . . Subvocalization means "the act or process of inaudibly articulating speech with the speech organs" .

An article on the power of suggestion in persuasive communication relays an important lesson for business communicators.   Most of us approach persuasion as an exercise in  logic and statistics.   According to Don Price, we’ll get much better results if we appeal to a person’s imagination ( http://searchwarp.com/swa119495.htm ).      Price claims that the power in the words of politicians, sales, and marketing professionals just might be hypnotic.   These folks can mesmerize us, moving us to fall in love with a product or a position by stringing words together in a way that “fires

Mostly, we assume people are like us , share our beliefs, our interests, our tastes, our background, our likes and dislikes, and our sense of humor. Frequently, we assume the audience understands our big words, jargon and acronyms, so it doesn't occur to us to explain them (the " curse of knowledge "). We assume they're judging us, out to get us, or would enjoy seeing us fail. We make assumptions all the time, about everyone. Just the other day, I wrote about assuming an audience member is adversarial based on a challenging question .

This is when mental preparation and a healthy perspective can have the greatest benefit. "It's kind of difficult to go home with no hardware, but you know, I'm gonna suck it up and cheer on the rest of my teammates." ~ Tyson Gay, after the U.S. Tags: Preparation Public Speaking Techniques and Strategies Athlete How's your attitude? It's not just in the content, delivery, props and equipment that a speaker delivers a complete package.

Understand your audience and where they're coming from, but be yourself and don't try to be "one of us." "Insert name here" is rarely convincing, sincere, or relationship-building. ...Tags: Tags: Quick Fixes Preparation Public Speaking Techniques and Strategie Driving down State St. last week, hubby and I spotted a sign in the window of a soon-to-open Pinkberry: "Pardon our dust as Santa Barbara awaits Pinkberry's flagship store."

Stories help us to keep tabs on what is happening in our communities. Many studies since then have confirmed the human predilection to make characters and narratives out of whatever we see in the world around us." Tags: Stories Public Speaking Techniques and Strategies Resources Communicatio Check out this article " The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn ," from Scientific American. It's about why we enjoy listening to and telling stories and what those stories reveal about our brains and our social, emotional and cognitive development. "Psychologists

But that doesn't work for most of us. Tags: Public Speaking Techniques and Strategies The Business of Speaking Communicatio I read this comment, submitted by a teacher, on a public speaking article today: "I understand the importance of not being boring, but I am not selling anything, and most of the tips in this article on public speaking seem aimed at holding an audience captive so you can sell them something." Guess what: We're all selling something . Do you work for a nonprofit, giving presentations about homelessness, domestic violence, the value of arts education or

When it’s close, many of the decisions just come down to who connects with us best,” one CEO told me. Tags: Preparation Public Speaking Techniques and Strategies Resources Communicatio This post is adapted from Joey Asher’s new book “How to Win a Pitch: The Five Fundamentals that Will Distinguish You from the Competition." It is available at http://www.howtowinapitch.com and on Amazon (pre-order until May 19).