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

If you are looking for a book to inspire you to take the leap from being terrified of speaking in public fora to getting out there and do it(!) - then this may be the book for you.
On the other hand, If you are a professional with experience of public speaking and communications but wish to polish your skills - then this book is probably not for you.
I belong to the latter, and abandoned the book half-way thruogh as I couldn't take it anymore to have each page littered with 'quotes' from speakers, PR gurus and others aiming at giving the reader their 'pep-talk and accumulated wisdom' in the form of snazzy one-liners.

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's book has given me enormous insight on how to captivate and inspire my audience. This is book is a goldmine of knowledge for the professional or amateur speaker. I contribute my success as public speaker to many of the secrets she reveals in this thoroughly researched book. BRAVO LILLY !

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.