What Do You Do
When "Good" is Not
Good Enough?
How good are your communication skills? Pretty good?
That's too bad.
Because these days, "good" communication skills are not nearly good enough.
Why? It's estimated that the average person watches over four hours of television every day. And while driving their cars, many people listen to a similar amount of radio every day. Still others listen to self-improvement CDs or listen to audio books.
What do all these activities have in common? They're all done by professional presenters! News anchors, talk show hosts, actors, emcees, politicians.... these are all skilled professional communicators.
And that's bad news for you, because when people hear you talk, they automatically compare you to Oprah, Leno, Osteen, Sawyer, and all the other professional presenters that they hear every day... and you probably come up severely lacking. That's why the plain hard truth is....
"Good" presentation skills are no longer good enough!
"How can I improve my communication skills?"
 |
Farmer Brown
has no problem talking,
but he hates to speak
in public. (Move your
mouse over the picture
to hand Farmer Brown
a microphone.)
Are you like
Farmer Brown?
|
There are many ways to improve your communication skills. Unfortunately, most of them are time-consuming, inconvenient, or expensive... or, in some cases, all three!
So how can you improve your communication skills, at your convenience and without busting your budget?
When you want to improve your physical strength and stamina, you visit a physical gym. So it's only natural that, to improve your communication skills, you need a good workout at the Speaker Gym!
Speaker Gym is your place to strengthen your core communications skills — speaking, listening, and writing!
 |
Wish you were
more outgoing
in social situations?
(Move your mouse
over the picture
to put Mona at a party.) |
Speaker Gym is where you will —
- strengthen your spoken communications skills! Whether you're giving speeches and presentations or simply "holding your own" in everyday conversations, Speaker Gym will help you communicate effectively with others.
- strengthen your written communications skills! After all, speaking is not the only way to communicate. From writing simple emails to crafting business proposals, your writing skills are possibly more important than your speaking skills, and Speaker Gym will help you strengthen your "writing muscles" and produce more effective written materials!
- improve your ability to "think on your feet". Handling the unexpected question is extremely important in many areas of life — especially on job interviews! Good communication starts with thinking... before you utter your first word. And Speaker Gym exercises your brain!
- increase your ability to listen and analyze what you've heard! If you're talking but you're not listening, you're just not communicating. Effective listening skills are a vital part of the communication process, and Speaker Gym helps you become a better listener.
Are your communication skills as strong as they need to be? Like many other things, if you don't use 'em, you lose 'em!
Sure, great communication skills are invaluable.
But are they affordable?
 |
Worried about finances?
Join Speaker Gym
for FREE!
(But this offer is good
for only the 1st
1,000 members!) |
How much is it worth to you to learn to communicate better? That's an unfair question, because no matter how important effective communication skills are to you... if you can't afford them, that's the end of the story.
 That's not a problem at the Gym. To celebrate our Grand Opening, the first 1,000 people who join Speaker Gym pay nothing for their membership!
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That's right. You pay nothing to join Speaker Gym.
Nada. Zip. Bupkus. Not one thin dime. Ever.
Why am I doing this? Simple. I'm hoping that a few people who join Speaker Gym will also be interested in the Gym's sister sites, Pro Speaker U and Up Your Fee. (These are sites for professional speakers and people who would like to be professional speakers.) So I'm willing to give away one thousand Gym memberships to capture the attention of those people. That's all.
OK, is this FREE offer worth anything?
Speaker Gym is free, but it's far from worthless. For one thing, the Gym isn't just about "speaking" — Speaker Gym focuses on developing all your communication skills.
As a registered Believer in the Speaker Gym , you will....
Gain unlimited access to the Gems from the Gym workstation, which is filled with useful tips and suggestions on improving your communication skills.
From Gems from the Gym:
Questions
Your presentation may lead to questions from your audience. The questions (and their answers) are a part of your speech.
There are several good times to field questions effectively. They include:
- during your presentation, whenever somebody thinks of one. This helps to establish a terrific rapport with your audience, but your schedule and ‘flow’ of material can easily be disrupted. This usually works best with small groups in a training session.
- during your presentation, at designated times. (“Before we proceed, are there any questions on ....?”) This enables you to answer questions while maintaining control over the meeting.
And ....
Repetition
To avoid boring your audience, you should vary your words, not repeating any particular word more than necessary.
On the other hand, deliberate repetition can be powerful. Consider —
“I hate flies. House flies. Horse flies. Even pop flies.”
Expand your useful vocabulary! Word-a-day calendars are great... but how often will you use the words "effluvium" or "ambisinister"? Strengthen your everyday vocabulary with powerful, useful words that you discover at the Word Workout exercise station!
From Word Workout:
exuberant
(egg ZOO ber ant)
Exuberant is an adjective that describes someone (or something) that is filled with enthusiasm or happiness. (Although it can also mean extravagant or abundant, these usages are less common.)
For example, "from her exuberant description of the party, it was clear that she enjoyed herself."
The noun version of this word is exuberance ("he was full of exuberance") and the adverb is exuberantly;("she spoke exuberantly").
An expanded vocabulary is terrific, but you can still look foolish when you mispronounce the words you use. Do you know how to correctly pronounce "February"? What about "government"? "Library"? "Athlete"? The Pronunciation Problems workstation will cure your mispronunciation woes!
From Pronunciation Problems:
Long-lived
Although the word "lived" has the same i-sound as "give", the hyphenated word "long-lived" uses the same i-sound as "dive".
So when you say "he lived a long time", it's pronounced differently than when you say "he was long-lived".
Having a strong vocabulary is great, but if you misuse the words, you're no better off. Grammar Goofs and Gaffes shows you how to recognize — and correct — problems in your everyday communications.
From Grammar Goofs and Gaffes:
Everyday vs. Every day
To my surprise, I spotted this grammar goof on an advertising sign... for a major bookselling store, no less... where it said "Open everyday until 11 p.m.".
The problem is, "everyday" (one word) means normal or routine. "Every day" (two words) means in all 24-hour periods.
So the store should have advertised "Open every day until 11 p.m.". (Interestingly, if the store had said "our everyday hours of business are...", they would have been correct also.)
And ....
Peak vs. Peek vs. Pique
These three words sound the same, so this grammar error only occurs when writing. Peak, peek, and pique are three different words that are sometimes confused.
- Peak indicates the top of something. It can be used as a noun ("she reached the peak of the mountain") or as a verb ("his career peaked too soon").
Want to add credibility to your presentations with attention-getting quotations and sound bites? The Internet is stuffed with the same ol' same ol' quotations by the same ol' same ol' people. But Speaker Gym's Quips, Quotes, and Soundbites workstation offers you a wealth of different quotations for your speeches and slide presentations!
From Quips, Quotes, and Soundbites:
Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face, and then you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business.
— Thomas J. Watson
Obviously, speaking is only one form of communications. Effective writing can be more important than effective speaking! (Unless you're being recorded, what you say may be forgotten rather quickly. But what you write will be around for a long, long time.) Sharpen your writing skills with Speaker Gym's How to Write Right workstation.
From How to Write Right:
Recognize and Use the Power of 3
You are probably already aware of using the “power of three” in your presentations. You need to recognize that it can be even more powerful in your written materials.
I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t tell you why three reasons — or benefits or testimonials — are more powerful than just two (or four), but they are. Sometimes listing three items gives your list a sense of natural symmetry. Other times it provides emphasis. Whatever its use, it usually tends to be eye-catching.
Participate in stimulating dialogs with other people who are working to improve their own communication skills! You are not alone in your quest to be a better communicator — and in the Speaker Gym Forums, you will associate with people who understand your challenges... and acknowledge your accomplishments.
The Public Forums are great for making new friends. But what about those times when you want to have a quiet exchange with a few close friends? You need Speaker Gym's Private Forums! Private Forums work just like the public forums, but you control who can belong to the forums you create. And you can create an unlimited number of Private Forums! (But you've got to join Speaker Gym first!)
And since we're talking about Private Forums, don't forget about Speaker Gym's Private Messaging system. It's ideal for when you want to talk one-on-one with a friend or colleague! (And I do mean "talk". Your Private Messages can be audio or even video recordings, as well as the more traditional typed messages.)
If you're a Toastmaster, you'll love the TM Tips workstation, which contains suggestions and guidance specifically for conducting better Toastmasters meetings!
And from TM Tips:
Table Topics Questions
When you're the Table Topics Master at a meeting, your table topics questions should be brief, usually limited to a single sentence or question. (After all, the goal of the table topics session is to have other people speak extemperanously, not to have you give a speech!)
If your questions require an explanation, the explanation should also be as brief as possible, and given at the beginning of the session. Each question should then be only a few words.
The Internet is filled with good information. (Unfortunately, it's also filled with a lot of garbage.) Useful URLs is a list of external resources that you'll find helpful in your quest to be a better communicator.
The Speaker Gym Resource Directory is a gallery of resources in which public speakers and other communicators will discover indispensable products and services.
So, what don't I get for free?
Frankly, there's not a lot that you don't get for free. But there's a little. At the "Speaker" level of membership (only $5 a month), you also can:
Use the power of "cloud computing" to create audio slide presentations that you can use from any computer with Internet access! You can use these slide shows to backup your own presentations, or you can use them "standalone" to do your presentation for you! You'll be amazed at how many different ways you can use the exciting A/V Presentations Generator.
And if you want to share your expertise with your fellow members, as a Speaker you can add articles and papers to the Words of Wisdom Document Library, or audio or video recordings to the Words of Wisdom A/V Library!
If these capabilities are useful to you, join as a Speaker for a small monthly fee. Otherwise, join as a Believer — for free — and you get all the other benefits that I described earlier.
(There is another level of membership, the Mentor level, that's appropriate to only a few individuals.... those people who want to promote their products and services to speakers. If that's you, read more about the Mentor level here.)
Are you ready to get in shape?
 |
Does the thought
of giving a speech
make you want to
SCREAM? |
Enough talk. It's time for action.
Let's face it — In today's Internet- and TV-obsessed age, when competition for people's attention is at an all-time high, superior communication skills are essential.
You know you need to tone up your communications skills. And you also know that there's no more convenient and affordable way to do it than at Speaker Gym. So why postpone it any longer? Join today and get your communications skills "in shape" for the exciting times to come!
Jim Barber, a.k.a. "Speaker Jim"
The Speaker Gym
www.speakergym.com
PS — C'mon, if you put it off until "later", you know you'll forget about it. Why procrastinate when you've got everything to gain and nothing to lose? Join now!
(It takes about 2 minutes to change the whole direction of your life! You're worth 2 minutes, aren't you?)
PPS — Unlike Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemimah, Uncle Ben, and others, Jim Barber is not a fictitious corporate spokesperson. Discover a little more about the man and the myth behind Speaker Gym!
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