Guidelines For Speakers at APSS Events
APSS is a really friendly community of speakers, trainers, facilitators, coaches, and others who aspire to be speakers. We prefer speakers at our events to aim their presentations at the level of Professional Members. Our focus is on topics that can add value in the areas of the 4 Es of Professional Speaking: Expertise, Enterprise, Eloquence, and Ethics.
Our APSS monthly meetings are usually attended by about 40-60 people, a mix of CSPs, Professional Members, Associate Members and guests. Our annual convention in May is usually attended by 80-100 people.We want you to enjoy your time with us, get to know us, and give us some great takeaways that we can apply immediately in our speaking/training business.
Our audience is hoping to:
- hear exactly what you promise you will deliver from the outline provided.
- be involved in the presentation through an interactive approach.
- enjoy some humour where appropriate.
- have a great evening of learning, sharing and fun.
- take away some key learning points that can be applied immediately.
We realise that some of our visiting speakers are subject/content experts rather than professional speakers. Please don’t feel we expect you to knock our socks off with your powerful presentation style (although it’s great if you do).We are here to learn more about your topic. For us, solid content is preferable to perfect delivery.
Our audience has not enjoyed presentations in the past when a speaker:
- goes off topic and does not stick to the outline provided.
- doesn’t structure the presentation well, so it is hard to follow.
- turns around frequently and talks at his/her slides instead of the audience.
- shows a video of him/herself making a presentation, unless the extract is essential to demonstrate a key learning point that could not be made by the speaker in person.
- talks constantly through a barrage of slides giving one point after another.
- tries to cover everything on the topic, so there seems little real focus.
- swears or uses inappropriate or bad language of any kind.
- spends too long actively promoting their programmes or selling from the platform.
It’s best to think of the top 3 or 5 key things about your topic and cover these well, leaving us with active takeaways, rather than trying to pack too much in.
