Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
The First Three Minutes
My clients often describe the first three minutes of a speaking presentation as “pure torture.” You need to step up, capture the audience’s attention, establish your credibility, and lay out your key themes. At the same time, you need to remember your key messages, your communication objectives, and the sound bites that you want your audience to walk away with. It’s a lot to remember and the pressure is likely to raise your blood pressure and play havoc with your memory. But, relax. There are three simple tips to help you stay on message while remaining comfortable and confident. Just watch the video.
Creating Sound Bites
Most people will forget most of what you say shortly after your presentation. Speech writers are always looking for hooks to make key ideas more memorable. These are the sound bites that you often hear on the evening news. Sound bites summarize, shorten and encode information to make it more memorable. It’s almost like writing a jingle for a commercial. How do you create sound bites? It’s not easy but there are some general rules to follow. Find out more in the video.
Welcome to Travis White Communications
Welcome to Travis White Communications. Our goal is to help you be more persuasive. On this website, you’ll find a great deal of information on the science of persuasion and the arts of communication — especially public speaking skills and writing skills. In addition to the educational material, I also blog on communication, presentation and persuasion topics. Please come back and visit again regularly as we expect to add new content most every day. You can also get the Persuasive Communication Tip of the Day on Twitter at @TravisCommGuy.
The educational content in this site is divided into five categories found on the navigation bar above.
- Rhetoric — the basic principles of persuasion as taught by Aristotle.
- Stagecraft – practical advice on how to manage your voice, your body and your slides.
- Content – advice on how to craft the content of your persuasive communication, including the written word.
- Sound Bites — how to make your ideas memorable.
- Planning — how to create realistic objectives and prepare for your presentation.
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