TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

7 Jul 2017 · 1 min

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1:29

TJ Walker, a public-speaking coach, says don't open your talk by thanking the organizers. It signals your content is boring. Thank them mid-presentation instead, with something specific and real.

Chapters

TJ Don't I have to start off a speech by thanking people, Thanking the organizer, thanking the person who introduced me. I get this question all the time and the answer is a resounding no. You don't have to start off a speech that way. It's not the end of the world if you do. The problem is everybody's expecting that it's not interesting to anyone other than the person you're thanking. So what are you really doing? You're telling everybody in the audience, hey, folks, right now would be a good time to sort of pull this out. Check your email, because I'm not really going to say anything interesting now. I'm not saying you can't be gracious and you can't thank people. It's where you thank them. Don't thank them right at the beginning. Thank them in the middle of your presentation or near the end of your presentation and do it in a way where it comes across as genuine and not perfunctory. Thank them in a specific way about something they've done. You do that, you're going to seem even more gracious when you thank them and the beginning of your speech will be much more interesting. I'm TJ Walker. I help people speak better. If you would like to improve your own public speaking, give me a call or check out our options below. We have online public speaking courses every month. I have live public workshops here in New York City and I'm always available to go anywhere in the world for private one on one and group training sessions.