Toastmasters' club is a great place to practice public speaking. I became a member of one of the clubs a few years ago, and I am glad that I made that move.
I took part in the organization’s Humorous Speech contest this year. I won the first prize at the club level, and then at the area level. My speech was titled, “1-800-CALL SUPPORT,” and as you may guess, the speech was about some of my hilarious experiences with the customer support calls. I had three stories – 1. A call where I dozed off listening to the soft music that was played when I was waiting in the line, 2. How a customer service agent of San Jose Mercury News failed to understand my problem – that I got the newspaper at my door even though I didn’t subscribe to it, 3. How a computer with interactive voice response system misunderstood my sewer problem to a refrigerator problem.
The club and area level contests were tough. Most contestants did great with their speeches. Looking back, I think the following three things helped me in winning at the area level:
1. Timing of the speech, and the pauses
Thanks to my club for letting me deliver the same speech in front of them three times. The club members were so generous in listening to the same speech over and over, and giving invaluable feedback.
These dry runs not only made me confident, but also guided me where to pause, and how to manage the time. Toastmasters’ contests are extremely anal about timing – they disqualify any speech that goes beyond seven and a half minutes. Some parts of my speech that I thought were funny didn’t evoke laughter from the audience. The practice sessions aided me in identifying and cutting those parts
2. Subject
Dealing with customer support on the phone is one of the most common things everybody can connect with. Some of the other participants chose common topics too such as superstitions, work culture, failing at learning new stuff, an so on. However, customer support seemed to be a favorite topic to many in the audience. They all laughed out loud just by hearing my speech’s title. That gave me a jumping start.
3. Organization
Thanks once again to my buddies at the club who helped me organize the speech in the right way:
1. Opening
2. First story
3. Second story
4. Third story
5. Conclusion
Apparently, 3 is the magic number. Some of the speakers at the contest tried to squeeze in many more stories, and I could clearly see that they were a bit more than the audience could digest.
Winning at the area level qualified me to participate at the division level. Here the competition was tougher. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking in front of a large audience, and listening to some of the fabulous speeches by the fellow contestants. Finally I won the third place. Where did the other contestants do better? This is my analysis:
1. Dramatic talk
The winners did a terrific job in giving a dramatic speech. They had strong vocal variety, expressions, and gestures. They made full use of the stage at times – to demonstrate how to dance, to show how the spouse drives the car, etc. They just didn’t talk about the characters of their speeches, but lived them through dialogue delivery. End of the day, theirs was a collection of stories the audience could see, and not just hear.
2. External Aides
This once again is about making the audience live the experience. One speaker played a music boombox and showed how he practiced his crooked dance steps, and the other winner brought Post-it stickies to demonstrate how his wife makes a list of complaints against him. Visual aides definitely made a big impact with the audience.
If you are a Toastmasters’ member I highly recommend that you participate in the Humorous Speech Contest next year. If you are not a member, I advice you to become one.
