High-Impact Public Speaking [Hardcover]

J. Regis O'Connor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1996

Communications in all its forms pervades today's business environment. Yet most business people neglect one of the most direct avenues of promoting their products, services, or organizations--public speaking. Whether you avoid public speaking out of fear or lack of experience, "High Impact Public Speaking for Business and the Professions" can help you become a comfortable, proficient, and successful speechmaker. "High Impact Public Speaking" takes you step-by-step through the speech preparation process and introduces you to the various types of speeches you may be called upon to give, including informative speeches, persuasive speeches, keynote speeches, and eulogies. Among the topics covered are the following:

• controlling stage fright
• analyzing the speaking purpose and audience
• researching the topic
• organizing the speech
• choosing effective language
• mastering the verbal and nonverbal aspects of speech delivery
• using visual aids

The book concludes with an appendix containing ten model speeches by such skilled orators as Lee Iacocca, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and former Senator Carol Mosely Braun.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Communication overwhelmingly pervades today's business environment. Whether you are owner-manager of a mom-and-pop shop, department head for a midsized industrial plant, or CEO of an international conglomerate, your primary tools for assuring your company's survival and success are the spoken and written word. Your skill as a communicator assuredly affects your employees' productivity, your clients' and customers' loyalty, your credibility as a manager, and your organization's bottom line. Communication in corporate America takes multiple forms, including job interviews, performance appraisal reviews, conference calls, meetings, memoranda, letters, reports, policy statements, workshops, and direct sales. The regular use of the public speech, however, has often been overlooked by companies as a major power tool with which to drive a business. This widespread neglect of public speaking as advertiser, promoter, motivator, and persuader surely accounts for billions of dollars of neglected opportunity each year in the United States alone. High-Impact Public Speaking for Business avid the Professions will help you learn to use public speaking as an effective business tool. Though the primary audience for this book is the business executive at any level of management, would-be public speakers outside corporate life can hone their speaking skills for a wide array of purposes. Leaders of nonprofit organizations, attorneys, consultants, legislators, owners of small businesses, members of town councils--all can markedly improve their effectiveness through a detailed study of the art and science of public speaking. For that matter, any thinking person wishing to influence groups of friends or neighbors about local issues can have notable impact through the power of the public speech.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies (January 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0844234133
• ISBN-13: 978-0844234137
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,323,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Helpful!!, February 21, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: High-Impact Public Speaking (Hardcover)

As a student and future business person, I found this book to be very helpful. Brooks's conversational way of writing is fun to read and easy to follow. He breaks public speaking down into four parts and gives suggestions for improving in each one. Brooks has learned good public speaking the hard way- through his own experiences- now he helps the reader learn them the easier way.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, useful., October 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: High-Impact Public Speaking (Hardcover)

Kind of boring to read but useful for people who need to make presentations and give seminars.