Excite Your Audience

New Hampshire Debates

cSuttle — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:58:40 +0000

New Hampshire is the new battle ground for the Republican presidential debate. Who nailed it as a speaker and who still needs a few pointers?

Iowa Debates Speech Analysis

cSuttle — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:13:18 +0000

Last debate until the Iowa caucuses. Let’s take a look at how the canidates are progressing.

The Republican Debate Debacle

cSuttle — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:54:02 +0000

Arguments, fights, and temper tantrums, did anyone look good in the latest debates. Let take a closer looking at the canidates in the CNN debates.

Speaking Tips from the 10/11/11 Republican Debates

cSuttle — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:26:49 +0000

FINALLY!!! My video technology is catching up with the times. This video is green screened and the example clips are right in my video. No more searching around on youtube to see the clip. We still have some work to do on the lighting, but this is a big improvement. Same great content, way better production value.

Speaking tip from the Tea-Party GOP debates.

cSuttle — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:58:57 +0000

Critique of the Tea-Part GOP debates held September 12th, 2011. No politics, just how they presented themselves.

Links to the debates. Use these to follow along with my comments.
Questions Round 1

Evaluation of Speakers at the Ronald Reagan Debates

cSuttle — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:27:48 +0000

Critique of the Ronald Reagan Library GOP debates held September 7th, 2011. No politics, just how they presented themselves.

Links to the debates. Use these to follow along with my comments.
Questions Round 1
Questions Round 2

Rick Perry – Still needs more work. Do you too?

cSuttle — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:48:34 +0000

With Rick Perry throwing his hat into the Republican ring, I thought it was time for me to focus on him. Rick speaks with passion, which is good, but he’s not quite as eloquent as Mit Romney. In the links below, I will send you to the exact spot in the youTube video I want you to look at and study. I finally realized you could do this :-/ All these click are from the same speech. In this first one, notice how my um’s, studders, and false starts Rick has. Only watch for one minute between 1:17 and 2:17 and count the stammers.

Lots of Noise

I counted 21, how many did you come up with? That’s more than one every three seconds. For a man who is going to have to speak for a living he should be working on this everyday.

Later in the speech he gets much better. Check out this clip from 4:30 to 5:30.

Less Noise

In this section there is only one. Much more acceptable. However, in this clip Rick is looking at his notes about half the time. He is basically reading the speech. If Mr. Perry wants to take on President Obama in 2012, he needs to focus on and eliminate this problem.

In my video segment today, I address how to get rid of ah’s, um’s, studders, and false starts in your speaking.

Iowa Debates – Presentation Critiques to Improve Your Speaking

cSuttle — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 01:13:55 +0000

Critique of the Republican Presidential candidates at the 2011 Iowa debates. No politics, just how they presented themselves.

Links to the debates. Use these to follow along with my comments.

Question #1

Question #2

Trying Too Hard – Herman Cain

cSuttle — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:07:24 +0000

After watching Herman Cain in the first GOP presidential candidate debate, I was impressed enough to want to review his speeches. In the debate, I loved the way all his comments seemed real and from the heart. None of his answers sounded scripted or rehearsed. While searching for speeches from Mr. Cain, I ran into the one below recorded at CPAC. This speech was a bit shocking because of one big factor, he was trying too hard.

There is a magic point in this speech where his style changes back to what I admired in the debate. That point in the video is the 7:00 minute mark. If you watch the speech before this point and after this point, it almost sounds like two different speakers. In the early part of the speech Cain is trying to be clever with his word play, he is punching out his sentence endings, and he sounds like he is talking from the pulpit. This is what I refer to as “church speak.” … And God cast Satan into the bawls of hell … It’s over the top and unnecessary. More importantly, it doesn’t sound real. It just sounds preachy and demeaning. I see a lot of good speakers with this problem.

After the 7:00 minute mark, Cain settles in and starts talking from the heart. It sounds personal, passionate, compelling and “REAL.” I’m sure the first part of the speech took a lot of practice, but I don’t believe Mr. Cain is doing himself any favors. He needs to stick with the style that will make people feel connected to him. There is a spot in the speech where he says, “stupid people are ruining American.” This gets a big laugh and after that, you can notice how much friendlier the crowd becomes. When his gets to the story about what people “call him,” the personalization of the speech make him human. I think this is the best part of the speech. This is Mr. Cain at his best. My suggestion for him would be to speak this way all the time.

Check out the speech and see if you don’t agree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkacOveF0

Tim Pawlenty – Don’t Just Know It, Live It

cSuttle — Fri, 06 May 2011 14:44:58 +0000

Today’s political speech review features Tim Pawlenty, one of the front runners in the GOP 2012 Presidential primary. In the clip listed below, Mr. Pawlenty gets a big round of applause at the 24 second mark. Notice how long he waits before he starts speaking again. He waits for 30+ seconds. That’s awesome. An audience wants to feel like they’re part of your speech. So often I see speakers start talking before the crowd is ready to move on. If they start talking to soon, the audience quiets down but misses a vital part of the experience.

When you’re speaking, learn this trick from Mr. Pawlenty, wait until your audience is 80% done cheering and then start speaking again. Don’t be so excited to get to the rest of your speech out that you step on the audience’s fun. It’s better to skip a piece of your speech and let the audience participate, than to cut off their excitement.

This is a good skill and one that Mr. Pawlenty obviously knows. However, last night I saw Mr. Pawlenty in the first GOP candidate debates in South Carolina. He made a lot of mistakes with ah’s and um’s, weak structure to some of his answers, and poor hand gestures. I think what we have here is a situation where Mr. Pawlenty knows the techniques, but they have not become ingrained in him. He still has to think about it on a conscious level. In a debate you have to think quickly. This will expose any weakness in your speech abilities.

I believe Mr. Pawlenty could benefit from “focused practice.” This is a term I use in my workshops. Think of it this way, if all a football team does is play football games, they’re not going to be very good. Great football coaches know this, so they drill their player on the basics one skill at a time. Blocking practice, sideways shuffle practice, field overview practice, the team goes over the fundamentals again and again until it’s ingrained in the subconscious. You can do the same thing with speaking skills. I’ve done this for decades and still do. Now when I speak, I use techniques like waiting for my audience not because I know it, but because I live it. It’s ingrained in me. Being a great speaking is about practicing the fundamentals and never letting yourself get rusty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gds_VQEKU_8&feature=related