Secrets of Successful Speakers: How You Can Motivate, Captivate, and Persuade

by Lilly Walters

Book Overview

How do highly paid professional speakers put magic and motivation into every talk? Lilly Walters, Executive Director of Walters International Speakers Bureau, reveals their secrets and strategies in this practical, conversational guide. Mark Twain reputedly said it took him three weeks to prepare an impromptu speech, but readers of Secrets of Successful Speakers should be able to do it in days - or minutes. This book spells out the rules in 11 easy-to-follow...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070680337
• ISBN13: 9780070680333
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

This book is worth its weight in gold!

Lilly and Dottie Walters have contributed volumes to the world of professional speaking. All of their books provide veteran and upcoming speakers alike with the resources, tips, and guidelines needed to be successful. This book is another example of the quality and care the Walters provide in all aspects of their speaking enterprise. I found this book to be most helpful in planning and writing my public speaking presentations as well as in my daily lesson preparations as a secondary school teacher. Lilly Walters presents page after page of straight forward approaches to capturing and keeping any audiences attention as well as numerous methods of achieving and reinforcing the exact message you were aiming at delivering. This is a must have on every public speaker's and educator's book shelf. My name is Kelly Croy. You can learn more about me and how I use this excellent book by Lilly Walters on my website at www.kellycroy.com.

A potent concoction of surefire tips and techniques

This is certainly one of the best books on public speaking I've read. The only other work that deserves special mention is Jack Valenti's Speak Up with Confidence. Walters gives surefire tips and techniques that are recipe for a successful presentation that may inspire for years. Her crisp advice on the main requirements of a speech of "passion and compassion with a purpose" is very potent and often leaps off my mind each time I prepare to instruct or make a speech. Walters has carefully drawn from the "secrets" of public speaking pros and concocted them into a surefire formula for success. What's more, her anecdotes and quotes are both entertaining and memorable. I found myself a better speaker even after reading and applying steps 1 and 2. Wait till I conquer step 11! Thank you Lilly Walters for an absolutely inspiring and terrific book.

The Best Book on Public Speaking

Psychological studies show that the average person fears public speaking more than death. Well, this book can quickly help overcome that very negative and unfortunate reaction.The author is the head of a major speaking bureau, so she knows what works and what doesn't. Otherwise, she wouldn't have any business. To improve on her perspective, she also interviewed 60 of the top paid speakers in the country and liberally quoted them in the text to this book. These quotes and examples are fascinating. She assumes that you are not a famous paid speaker now, so builds her points as simply and clearly as possible -- as a top speaker would. The book has one chapter that is worth 10 times the cost of the book -- how to overcome hostile audiences and problems that occur. I have never seen so many witty lines and fun things to do in an otherwise stressful situation! Mastering the material in this chapter would be enough to turn anyone into a confident speaker.Ms. Walters uses the analogy of planting, nurturing and caring for a tree to explain her concepts of public speaking. That makes everything much more tangible and familiar.At the end, she summarizes the most important points into four areas -- just in case you missed the punch line along the way.I especially liked the way she used counterexamples to make her point. She describes and quotes Stew Leonard, Jr. who often does just the opposite of what the book suggests. But he is successful because he is authentic, cares for his audience, and is sincere. Although I know a lot of public speakers, do paid public speaking myself, and read a lot about public speaking, I found that more than half of the material in this book was new to me. And it all made good common sense. So I'm converted!Learn to enjoy speaking to others and to better serve them in grasping things you care about that will help them. It can be very rewarding personally and financially for them and you!

Lilly takes you by the hand tells you how to do it right.

This dynamite book is for every speaker; The beginner and the pro. Easy to read, easy to digest and follow tips for organization and delivery; she boils things down to the bottom line, the important takeaways from her own experience and the experiences of others. I began taking notes the minute I began to read. I wrote down things like: Make love to your audience. Stay green and growing for each new audience. Make fear your slave not your master. Turn every presentation over to the Lord. Watch our for ad libbing under stress. Approach each audience with an attitude of generous love. Replace fearful self worries with audience benefits. What do you want your listeners to do differently after they hear you? Tell yourself, "Today I get to do what I love to do." Now I take Lilly Walters wisdom with me every time I speak. It goes before me, stays with me helping and guiding me all along the way. Every time I am hit with 'dry mouth' before a speech, I think of Lilly and her lemon story. She showed me how to develop my own three important takeaways. Comments from my last presentation included words like 'she captivated her audience,' 'left them spellbound,' ''her message of help and hope was heard loud and clear' etc. Thanks Lilly. You helped me grow, you helped me conquer my fear, you helped me organize my material and most importantly, I will always remember your words, "Lord, let me be a channel of your love." That's what it is really all about.

The book for making the transition from audience to podium.

This book is for you if you're making the transition from audience to stage- -whether by choice or necessity. Secrets of Successful Speakers provides a framework for replacing stage fright with confidence. It guides you through the steps necessary to plan and organize your presentation in a way that will engage your audience as well as build your confidence in your material. Secrets of Successful Speakers contains a wealth of simple, easy-to-apply, tried and proven ideas. Within a half-hour of starting to read it, for example, I completely reorganized an upcoming presentation- - replacing a rather cumbersome 8-step process with an easily remembered 3-step process. Secrets is a fast read because each of the author's points are supported by comments from between five and ten other speakers. This conversational point/counterpoint construction emphasizes important points and adds a great deal of personality to the book. The more time you spend with this book, reading it and filling in the worksheets provided, the more comfortable you'll be with your upcoming presentation.