I have been speaking in public to large and small audiences for many years now. And I’ve been fortunate to have employers who, recognizing the importance of polished speaking and presenting skills, have invested in many of their key executives. Once I founded my own company, I spent several years with the National Speaker’s Association. Despite all that experience and training, I’ve found Weissman’s book to be incredible useful and insightful.
The reader, however, gets much more than a professional’s view of platform skills. When you purchase this book, Weissman provides a password to his website where video clips are made available to demonstrate exactly what Weissman is critiquing concerning presentation styles and techniques. I found the videos to be most useful and fun to view – who wouldn’t enjoy seeing the old pros (Clinton, Nixon, Reagan, Kennedy and others) at work? And Weissman is up to date with clips and commentary on President Barack Obama’s presentation style.
Weissman establishes his credentials early on with client success cases, and then moves into explaining why his instructions will make sense from an audience’s point of view. This, I found to be refreshing and straight forward. He writes in a crisp and clear style with a minimum of embellishment, demonstrating how to add value in a presentation with his “less is more” principle. He boils his tactics down to memorable “reduced instructions” such as ERA – eye contact, reach out, animation.
Weissman has answered several questions I have had concerning presentation style with the (deadly) PowerPoint presentation so prevalent today. His instructions are contrary to the many presenter coaches I’ve encountered, and frankly, Weissman makes much more sense.
Whether you are a professional speaker, a novice, or someone in between, Weissman’s book will be an invaluable asset and help you bring your skills to the next level. Every executive, manager or person who speaks to any size audience should have this book on his or her desk.
Click to view at Amazon.