Remember the advice of bestselling writer Elmore Leonard: “try to leave out the parts that people skip.”

Be brief. Readers will love you for it. (Photo by guestalt).

That has lead me to one of my newest gift products: custom-made postage stamps.

After all, even in this digital age, just about everyone I know still needs stamps…and just about everyone I know in business is always short a stamp or two for mail-outs. So when an envelope arrives at a client’s doorstep with a full sheet of personalized stamps (authorized by Canada Post*) ready to use, I can almost hear their cheers right across town.

The feedback I’ve received on this product has been great, and that’s included plenty of interest in learning more about how it’s done. So here’s a summary in three easy steps.

1. Visit Canada Post’s Picture Postage website. It explains all the important technical and legal points that you need to know about.

2. Choose the digital image that you want to feature on your personalized stamp. Make sure it’s a photo you own and have the legal right to feature on a stamp. A company logo might be allowed, but exercise good judgment. Remember that your client is going to want to use the stamps on their own mailouts, so make sure that it doesn’t look as though you’re putting your brand on their correspondence. My approach has been to use photos from my personal collection, but decide what works best for you.

3. Review the finished product and send to your client. When your order ships to you from Canada Post, it features a full sheet of stamps, plus a card-sized reproduction. I forward this along with a short note to my client saying thanks for their ongoing business. I also find it helpful to mention that yes, indeed, these are real stamps and valid at domestic letter rates in Canada.

* American readers take note: there’s a similar service for custom US postage available right here.

Granted being a great speaker is a skill that takes time to master. But it really is a skill that anyone can learn. And with the right advice to get you started, your next speaking engagement can be something that you’ll actually look forward to. 

Earlier, I posted five tips to help you get started.

Here are five more (with more to come)… 

6. Don’t worry about whether you’re funny.
Some people think that they absolutely must have funny-one liners in a speech to help break the ice. But most people just aren’t gifted with coming up with good material and delivering it in a way that makes people laugh…genuinely. So for most of us out there with a tin ear for comedy, we make do just by concentrating on putting together a great speech that people can relate to. And that takes me to my next point…

7. Don’t just be yourself. Share an experience.
When you’re speaking to an audience, it’s like making an acquaintance for the first time. And things tend to go well when people feel comfortable and can identify with their speaker. That’s the real key to breaking the ice. Early on in your presentation, try to share an experience with your audience…one that tells them a little bit about you. By doing this, you became less of a stranger
to the umpteenth degree. You’re on the road to being a friendly, familiar face.

8. Help the audience with cues.
For most, listening is a difficult skill. Many people get lost easily in a presentation unless you help them along with some simple cues. First, get right to the point explaining what your presentation is about. And be specific. If you can’t sum it up in a sentence, there’s a good chance your message risks getting lost. Next, give your audience a list of the things you are going to cover. In less than a minute, those folks sitting in front of you will know exactly what to expect, and they’ll appreciate you for it.

9. It don’t mean a thing if it ‘aint got that swing.
That’s what the songwriting powerhouse of Duke Ellington and Irving Mills once said. And there’s a truth in there that applies to public speaking. A great speech is about more than ideas. It’s about conveying emotion. When people can identify with the emotional space where you’re coming from, they become a lot more receptive to the ideas you put forward, including your call-to-action.

10. Practice, practice, practice.
Ideally, you should do a dry-run of your speech in the room where it’s going to be delivered. But that’s not always possible. Even if your practice area is your living room and your makeshift audience is the family dog and a photo of Aunt May, the more you rehearse the more comfortable you’ll be at the podium.

1. People want to see you succeed. 
Call it human nature or a function of self-preservation, but when people come to hear someone talk, they generally want to enjoy the experience. That’s not to say that the bar of expectations is lowered. But as a speaker, you can generally count on there being a lot of goodwill in a room…even before you start talking! Use that to your advantage…especially of you’re feeling a little nervous. Because it means that people are generally going to be more receptive to what you have to say compared to, say, doing an elevator-style pitch to a small group at a social gathering. 

2. It’s your audience. 
Whether you’re doing a keynote at lunch or are simply tasked with doing one-minute introductory remarks, when you take to that podium, you are the speaker. The audience belongs entirely to you while you’re up there. You command their attention. Wow. That’s pretty impressive when you stop and think about it. People stop what they’re doing so they can listen to what it is you have to say. And it’s up to you how you use that power, right down to setting the tone of the room and the pace of the presentation. That can be pretty empowering. 

3. Share and be remembered. 
It’s always a nice touch to have copies on-hand of your presentation. Even if it’s just a one-page summary of key points along with your contact information, it can be really useful…and a powerful networking tool. Not everyone is going to want a copy, but for those who do take one, they’re much more likely to remember who you are and what you had to say.  

4. But don’t hand out anything before! 
If you chose to share copies of your speech, hand it out after your presentation, otherwise your audience members will spend their time with their heads down reading it instead of listening to you.  

5. Write for the ear, not the eye. 
One of the most common mistakes made by novice speakers is that they prepare their text much the way they might prepare a news article or even a research paper. In other words, they write for the eye, using long sentences and maybe even a lot of fancy words. But public speaking is about getting people to listen and to feel something about the experience. Write for the ear. That’s where your audience really is. Break up those sentences. Be punchy. Forget the rules about typical sentence structure. Really. Because they don’t apply when we’re talking or listening to someone. 

Here are four ways you can make your web copy more user friendly, including handy exercises to make it all happen today.

1. Focus less on you and more on them—your reader. It’s often tempting to cram a site full of copy, detailing who you are and what you do. Don’t give in! Granted, your readers do need to understand what your business is all about, but never do so at the expense of demonstrating what’s in it for the reader to do business with you. Here’s a simple exercise that I do with my clients (and I even do this with my own copy). Print a copy of your website and circle each and every reference to “I” or “we” or “us.” See if you can cut back those references by about 25 percent. For each instance, ask yourself if there’s a way you can change your copy so that it refers less to you and more to the readers. The result will be copy that sells readers on the benefits of doing business with you, while still leaving room for you to tell your story.

2. Be useful. There’s broad appeal to being seen as a resource that saves time. Websites are no exception. One exercise that I like to do with clients is the “10 points” test. Looking at your existing site, find 10 things that a reader might come looking for when visiting. Award yourself a point for each item you find and then think of ways to improve your score. Being useful can be as simple as including an always-fresh list of links to favourite books. The key is to put yourself in the shoes of the reader.

3. Be easy to reach. This might seem obvious, but consider the bulk of websites out there and how they treat vital contact information, such as phone numbers, email and postal addresses. They bury them under some tab called “Contact us.” Don’t make your readers work hard to reach you. Even if you simply include a footer at the bottom of each page with just your main phone number, readers will appreciate the thought. And you’ll have just earned a point in the “10 points” test.

4. Be brief. Do you really need to plow every detail of your company’s purchasing process onto the main area of your website? Even for readers who love details (and yes, there are many out there), they’ll appreciate it if you keep your online copy brief and punchy. Use links to archived material or to PDF documents for cases where there’s important background material that needs to be in the public domain. Try limiting every page to no more than 150 words.

When writing fresh copy, it can be tempting sometimes to hitch an idea to the hyperbole bandwagon. A product is just a product unless you say it’s the ultimate at what it does, right? The trouble with this approach is that it’s predicated on an empty promise and does very little to set you apart from the fray. As Seth Godin points out:

There are 345,000,000 Google matches for “ultimate”…

Want to make the best case you can to clients about what you do, or what you’re selling? Drop the self-congratulatory clichés and instead create copy that communicates benefits to your reader.

Remember rule #1 in communications. Your message is not about you. It’s always…always…about them.

One of the better bits of advice I’ve seen about this comes courtesy of 43folders. I’ve been keeping it handy in my ideas folder on my desk, but blogging about it just makes so much more sense.

Let me add a few more tips and elaborate on at least one that they mention:

Cut and paste some text. Find something—anything—and drop it into the document you’re working on. It’s often easier to develop a thought when it’s couched in text rather than a couple of lonely sentences orphaned on an otherwise blank screen.

Write for an audience of six-year olds who had sugar for breakfast, because kids are among the most unforgiving when it comes to buzwords and wordiness. You’ll get to the point in a hurry.

Write something else. On a bad day, I find email is especially helpful because it gets me sitting down and typing. Sometimes all we need is a little push to get the momentum working again.

Go have a shower. I’m being serious, here. Not only will you feel better, but it’s where some of the best ideas can pop into your head. Maybe it’s the isolation and the white walls around you. Who knows? But it works. Heck, Holiday Inn is so convinced of this, they’ve turned this idea into a benefit of choosing them for accomodation for business travel.

Go somewhere else. Grab your notebook—be it one with a pencil or one with a keyboard attached—and get out of the office. Go to the backyard, to a park, or go to a place that offers free wifi. Grab yourself a large cup of something, and then take another kick at the can. Some of my best copywriting ideas have come knocking just by making a change to my thinking environment.

Have some of your own failsafe tips about what to do with the creative turns from warm honey to cold molasses? By all means share!

Fletcher Dean, who runs the excellent and much-quoted thespeechwriter.com has posted some helpful tips on using themes in a speech. I’ll share some highlights:

True ‘happened-to-me’ stories — This isn’t a “while I was waiting on the taxi” theme but a real event in the life of the speaker. These not only have the benefit of providing a good theme, but they endear the speaker to the audience.

Stories — Folk tales and fairy tales can even provide memorable introductions into your main topic. These are especially useful for international speakers when you can find a local tale familiar to the audience. It shows the speaker has done his or her homework and appreciates the local culture.

Quotes — A good quote can set the tone early in a speech and give you an interesting theme. If the person being quoted is well-known and well-liked, this technique has the added benefit of letting your speaker borrow credibility.

Reference to an historical event — One of my favorites, this often requires some legwork to ferret out but is easily worth the effort. Listeners appreciate the historical perspective and anecdotes this technique provides, especially if it’s tied to a “day-in-history” event.

Current events — A quick scan of the news can often provide just the hook you need to develop a theme. Because speeches are often written days, if not weeks ahead, however, it’s most useful to look for news events that have staying power. These may even include books on the best-seller list, popular movies and television shows or even print and broadcast ads.

Statistics — In a category all by themselves, statistics can often be elevated to theme status if you find the right ones. Economic and education stats are often useful but so are demographics if you can use them to illustrate a point. The key here, of course, is to bring those statistics down to a personal level.

Nevertheless, there are some gems out there. One of the better books I’ve read on the subject is Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done. Granted, it still has elements of time-management absolutism, but there’s still plenty of good sense, too. GTD is heavy on prioritization, but with enough customize-ability to keep even a guy like me happy.

There’s a great summary of Allen’s key book posted at 43 folders that’s worth recapping:

Identify all the stuff in your life that isn’t in the right place (close all open loops);

Get rid of the stuff that isn’t yours or you don’t need right now;

Create a right place that you trust and that supports your working style and values (put a big star beside that one, if you write for a living);

Put your stuff in the right place, consistently;

Do your stuff in a way that honours your time, your energy, and the context of any given moment;

Rate and refactor mercilessly.

It’s a game plan of sorts. And so far, I have to say that it’s working rather well for me.

There are plenty of them, but for starters here the ones I use a lot.

command + n = new page
command+ s = save
command + h = hide (very useful but commonly assumed by Windows users that this quits an application, when in fact it leaves the app running in the dock so it can be used again in a hurry)
command + q = quit application
command + i = get info
command + w = close window
command + option + h = hide all other windows
command + shift + a = show the “Applications” folder
command + option + eject = put the Mac to sleep

Exposé
F9 = make all open windows miniatures (very, very, very handy when you have many things on the go)
F11= slide all windows to reveal desktop
F12 = launch widgets

Spotlight (search your computer)
command + spacebar = launch spotlight

1001: If you’re using flickr to manage and store your image library, this little freeware tool is indispensable for helping you upload images and passively browse the flickrstream.

Newsfire: The über simple layout makes it a snap to get a quick hit of updates from favourite sites.

Camino: Safari might be prettier, but this browser is still the fastest out there.

iScrobbler (plugin for Audioscrobbler): Tracks and updates to your Last.FM account, showing what you listen to on iTunes. It’s geeky, yes, but once your playlist grown a few thousand tracks deep, it becomes increasingly fascinating to see what your real listening habits are.

Transmit: If you need to maintain a website, then you’ll likely need an FTP application. Transmit is without compare in the Mac world. Not just feature-rich, but intelligently designed.

MenuCalendarClock: Handy to have in your taskbar, so you can check at a glance today’s date as well as your upcoming iCal appointments.

Billings: A must-have for busy professionals who need to keep track of invoicing plus time spent on multiple projects.