The Complete Idiot's Guide to Success as a Professional Speaker

Public speaking is both an art and a science, yet sadly many people with important ideas to share are not good at presenting their material, while some excellent presenters are long on style and short on content, leaving you with transient enthusiasm or a warm fuzzy feeling that is ultimately as satisfying as cold Chinese food. Dr. Thomas Lisk is a highly experienced public speaker with over thirty years of presenting ideas and concepts, as well as running a high-end speaker bureau. But more than that, he has carefully dissected every aspect of public speaking and presents a clear map that any aspiring speaker can follow. It is so important to realize that public speaking is not only for fluent extroverts who can tell a good story. If you have passion and a message, public speaking is a skill that you can learn. Not only has this book been carefully thought out and produced by a genuine expert in the field of public speaking, the familiar "Complete Idiot's Guide" format, with its short, pithy paragraphs and chapters, and text boxes highlighting or reinforcing important points, makes the book extremely easy to read, and will likely leave you buzzing with ideas on how you, personally, could implement the ideas and plans. This book contains plenty of material for the rank beginner, as well as the more experienced speaker. Even after giving more than 5,000 speeches, keynotes and workshops, as well as teaching speaking skills to others, I learned a great deal from it. This is not only a book for people who want to do paid speaking engagements; it is for anyone who wants to get better at communicating. If you have ideas or concepts that you MUST share with the world, then this is the best book that I know of, and probably the only one that you will ever need. Very highly recommended. Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

You will find "Success as a Professional Speaker" easy to navigate and full of very useful and relevant ideas you can put to immediate use. In addition to the academic information this book is packed with valuable tidbits of wisdom that will propel any speaker to the next level. As defined in this guide, I have been introduced to speaking through the back door. "The back door is reserved for people who have become speakers not primarily because speaking was something they always wanted to do, but because the circumstances of their lives brought them to the speaking world." Given my entrance into this profession coupled with the fact that I have been a life long introvert, I have needed all of the help I can get to assist overcoming obvious barriers. I have read this guide cover to cover and now use it regularly as reference material. It has assisted me as a novice and I will continue to use it as I further develop into a professional. I have several books on speaking. This is one of the best. I highly recomend it. Marlin Keesler "Go The Distance Dad" [...]