How to Prepare and Present Powerful Presentations, with Patricia Fripp

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FrippHall of Fame keynote speaker and executive speech coach Patricia Fripp spoke to the members of the NSA Northern California Chapter Speakers Academy on Saturday. Fripp is the founder of our Chapter and a leading authority in the world of professional speaking.

Her entertaining and informative morning session touched on many aspects of her own 30-plus year career as a top speaker. She shared valuable information for aspiring professional speakers who want to prepare and present powerful presentations, including:

  • Ask: Are you practicing to improve or to reinforce bad habits? As a novice, start with best practices from the beginning.
  • Take advantage of the opportunity the Academy and NSA chapter gives us to network with others who have a passion for speaking.
  • Expect to bomb — if you’ve not failed somewhere on stage, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough.
  • Asking questions is the best education. The quality of the information you receive depends on the quality of your questions.
  • Be willing to promote yourself in an ongoing, consistent and relentless way. Refocus and redirect what you are doing.
  • To build a long-term sustainable business you need to exceed expectations, or you won’t be invited back.
  • Desire trumps talent. You must have a relentless commitment as well an interest in speaking on your topic.
  • The most powerful way to learn any topic is to teach it to others.
  • Find a topic for your speeches by looking within your experience and talent, such as the expertise you’ve accumulated in your day job. No matter how technical your field, build your speech by thinking how you would explain what you do to your grandmother.
  • Despite the fact that there’s only so much truth in the world, you have a unique point of view. Deliver that in your speeches. Don’t invalidate your life experience.
  • A great way to develop material for a speech is to become a customer of the client who books you for a speech. Be a secret shopper and report your learnings. Talk to lower-level employees.
  • Structure your speech on a strong premise or central theme that is a basis of argument, leading to a conclusion. Be sure your talking points back-up and prove your big idea.
  • Remember the first 30 seconds and last 30 seconds of any talk have the most impact. Don’t waste them with empty pleasantries.
  • Engage the audience in your subject by asking “Would it interest (horrify, amaze) you to know…”
  • Populate your presentations with flesh and blood characters other people can relate to. Stories do this.
  • Your audience will remember what they “see” in your stories.

These were among the many lessons shared by Fripp in her session. For anyone who would like to dive deeper into what she has to offer, I highly recommend her Virtual Training program. This online resource gives you access to one of the most in-demand executive speech coaches and sales presentation experts available. Fripp’s Virtual Training is engaging and fun. It is designed for ambitious professionals, executives, sales teams, and professional speakers. Heck, she’ll even give you a 7 day free trial. What’s not to like?

To hear a brief extract from Saturday’s event, where Fripp shares the secret of her own career success, click on the podcast icon below.

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