Transcripts

Suzanne Bates:
Every good speaker was once a bad speaker. The only way you become better is by doing it.

Suzanne Bates, author of the book, Speak Like A CEO, says a good speech or presentation is more about stories and less about presenting facts and data.

Because public speaking really isn't about getting up and delivering points from a power point slide. It's really about giving a narrative. Helping people understand something. And people love to hear stories. If they hear a story and remember the story they'll remember the point of the story. I also tell stories about myself. And I think it's important for everybody to have original stories. To tell stories from your own life, so I tell stories about having to overcome obstacles, or learn an important lesson about public speaking that I think are also very effective. People love to hear stories from you because they're original; they've never heard them before. And they buy into you when you tell stories that are from your own experience; they're about people that you know.

But it's important to keep in mind that telling stories doesn't mean telling jokes.

And in fact it's a real mistake, most people don't tell jokes well. But you can use humor effectively by taking one of your original stories and exaggerating how difficult it was, or having a little fun with yourself. That type of thing works very well with audiences.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.