Robert Fripp at World Financial Center New York December 3-4, 2010.
http://www.artsworldfinancialcenter.com/cgi-bin/Go.cgi
My partner Alan Weiss in The Odd Couple Marketing Seminar is just back from Bora Bora. I was checking his blog for photos of the best suite he has ever had...that would be tough to find as Alan and Maria live very well. I found one of his other blog posts you will find as valuable as I did.
(From Alan's new book, Million Dollar Referrals from McGraw-Hill, which will be released in mid-2011.)
Language to generate referrals in various stages of client interaction
New Clients, Project Launching
• “As we move forward, it’s common for me to request referrals from my client partners, since that is the source of most of my business. I hope you’ll consider agreeing to do that when the time is right.”
• “Referrals are the ‘coinage of my realm’ in this business, and I’m going to work very hard to maximize your project’s outcomes so that you’ll be very comfortable is providing these at the right point.”
• “It’s very early, but my experience is that it’s not uncommon for my clients to want to share their results with others. I want to assure you that when you provide referrals, and if I accept their business, you will always have my highest priority and I would never endanger that.”
• “Since you and I actually met through a referral, you know how effective that is for others who for whom we both believe I may be a good ‘fit.’ I’m happy to discuss that with you if you are ever questioned about our work together.”
• If you encounter people inside or outside of the organization whom you believe could benefit from my help, I’d be happy to be of further service to you and to them.”
Existing Clients, Project Underway
• “As we’ve progressed, I’ve received some indirect inquiries from some of your colleagues. Would you be comfortable introducing me?”
• “Would it make sense to approach the other units which have relationships to our project to see if they are amenable to becoming part of it?”
• “When the project began, I mentioned the potential of referrals from you to people who might also benefit from this value. While it may be premature to approach them, it’s probably a good time to understand who they may be.”
• “Are there people outside of the organization with whom you’d like me to share some of these approaches?”
• “Who else within the organization do you think I should be talking to as this project approaches completion?”
You may want to check Alan's blog for more.
In The Odd Couple we do not always agree!
I am very excited to be speaking at the National Speakers Association's Carolina's chapter on Friday evening and Saturday November 12-13, 2010.
Friday evening I will speak about the best ideas I have learned in my over 30 years speaking career. Mike Frank who is the person who discovered me will be talking about the history of NSA.
Saturday my subject is Taking Your Presentation to the Next Level and Mike will talk about working with Speaker's Bureaus. This is us when we were both younger!
Here we are at the NSA Legends Who Rock session at the National Speakers Association New York Convention.
THE Executive Speech Coach Patricia Fripp is a WonderWoman Speaker.
These photos are from the National Speakers Association Convention in July 2010.
Fripp did NOT fall flat on her face!
With a little help from her friends Al McCree, Darren LaCroix, Ed Tate and Mark Brown. The last three are partners in World Champions Edge coaching community.
ALAN WEISS INTERVIEWS PATRICIA FRIPP
When and how did you begin speaking professionally (for a fee)?
In 1975, a hairstyling company called Markham paid me $350 a day for hairstyling demonstrations. What set me apart from other stylists was the fact I could cut hair for four hours and talk the entire time! I realized the people in the back could not really see what I was doing. Therefore, I had to describe what I was doing in a way that they thought they could see. To keep their attention, I also told them how to sell more, interview potential employees, and promote and market. The speaking part of the program was so successful Markham extended the training to a second day on management and motivation. Since I was the star of my Dale Carnegie class and attended Toastmasters, I knew how to organize my remarks without notes.
At the same time, my executive clients invited me to speak to their service clubs, staff meetings, and small conferences. Because of my personality and expertise at cutting their hair, my clients thought I would be a pretty good speaker. However, without exception, they were amazed how good! Many of my first free or low-fee talks to their companies eventually led to major long-term relationships.
For example, the first time I spoke to Bob Kessler’s team at the San Francisco office of Moore Business Forms, he paid me $75 in Moore business forms. Throughout the years as he got promoted, he hired me multiple times in many cities. The last time was to keynote a convention in Hawaii to sales professionals from sixteen countries with name entertainment. Shame he retired!
In 1984 when I finally retired from hairstyling and was a full-time professional speaker, I was hired to speak to AT&T National Account managers. I was referred by Gary Hickox who, at age twenty-seven, impressed his boss by bringing in a top motivational speaker to speak at a small team meeting. His hairstylist! In 2010, twenty-six years later, we still keep in touch.
At Rotary Club speeches marketing my salon I was asked, “What would you charge to say that to the Oakland Appliance Dealers?” “$50!” The next request was to speak on goal setting to the San Mateo School Administrators. I replied, “$50 an hour and travel time.” He offered me $125! Incidentally, the next time the same gentleman asked, “What would you charge to say that to the Oakland Appliance Dealers?” he paid me $5,000.
In 1977, I attended my first NSA convention and realized I could one day be a speaker.
How did you choose your early topics, since your prior career was as a hairdresser?
Alan, we teach speakers you get paid for what you know. You get paid well when you deliver what you know with impact. I realized I was an expert at building a small or medium size business.
My early topics were the result of what I did on a daily basis, “How to Get, Keep, and Deserve Customers” and “How to Promote Business.”
As a hairstylist I learned important business building advice from my successful entrepreneurial dad. Good fortune led me to always work with brilliant bosses such as Jay Sebring the Hollywood hairstylist, and I maximized my 45-minute haircutting sessions with my executive clients as an education. I would ask, “What made you the top sales person in your company?” and “What did you do to your small company that made a big one want to pay you millions of dollars for it?”
In the early days of my speaking career, sometimes audience members would ask, “Where did you get your MBA?” and “Are you an industrial physiologist?” I would reply, “No...just twenty-four years behind a hairstyling chair…taking advantage of opportunity.”
Was it difficult to prove your credibility at first to buyers and the audience? Why or why not?
Actually, no.
In the middle 70‘s and early 80’s there were fewer speakers and fewer requests to customize. I met Mike Frank at my first National Speakers Association convention where he “discovered” me. Mike promoted big sales rallies and ran a speakers bureau. He was an early supporter and recommended me to some of his clients. In those days he would ask, “Would you consider a woman speaker?” Often the answer was “No.” Then after a few years it was, “We must have a female speaker.”
At the time, there were few women speakers who fit in several categories as I did. I was entertaining, yet not a humorist. I had been successful in a male dominated industry. Plus, my energy and personality was a match to the business like it had been in hairstyling. Mike reported, “Men and women like you, and so do young and mature audiences.”
Most of my early engagements came at the recommendation from speakers bureaus or people who had heard me and knew what they were getting.
What are the biggest changes in your career while in the profession?
The Internet and technology. A website is a sales person who works seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, knows what you do, who you do it for, and what they say about your service.
My business was built with me as a keynote speaker. In my heyday I presented 100-130 keynote speeches a year. By listening to my clients, I realized my passion…speaking about speaking…was something they desperately wanted and would pay handsomely for. Also by listening to my clients, I developed a very profitable and actually more satisfying part of my business: teaching executives and sales professionals to deliver their messages more powerfully and persuasively.
My business is now three-fourths sales presentation skills training and executive speech coaching.
Would you do anything differently, if you started again, knowing what you now know?
Technology did not exist when I started. That would have made a difference. On reflection I wish I had embraced technology, hired the speech coaches, and collaborated with others…earlier. Nothing differently…just embraced sooner.
What’s the most important advice for a beginning speaker?
You may not lack the talent it needs to be successful, you may lack the patience. You need a superb speech or seminar, have to market effectively, and understand the speaking business. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Learn from others who are where you want to be.
What’s the most important advice for a veteran speaker?
Value your wisdom and experience, partner with younger professionals, stay relevant, let your long-time clients know you are still in business and how you have expanded and adapted your expertise. Revisit, rediscover, and refine what you are doing. This will help you fall in love with your content again.
Where do you see the profession going for the rest of this decade?
Tough to answer for a whole industry. However…from my own experience and point of view:
More business leaders will enter the professional speaking ranks as the ‘boomers’ retire and enter their next career. Humorists and celebrity speakers will always have an important place at conventions. However, experts who deliver their message in various formats will be the most successful. More companies are going to question the value and contribution of outside speakers and consultants. The ability to customize and personalize your message is mandatory. A professional with the ability to deliver in Webinars, as well as in person, will give a speaker an advantage.
After experiencing the last couple of years of ‘the new normal’ clients will continue to look for value, however more meetings and conventions will return.
What’s the most astounding or incredible thing that occurred while you were speaking?
Personally:
Getting out of a space ship in a Wonder Woman costume.
Looking out at my audience of 150 $350,000-a-year sophisticated sales professionals not believing they could all be that drunk.
Early in my career speaking for an enthusiastic direct sales company, I paused for effect before my review; they leapt to their feet in a standing ovation…so I walked off without finishing the presentation. After all, I thought, “How many standing ovations of that magnitude does a speaker deserve?”
Corporately:
I never cease to be amazed that companies spend six million dollars for conferences, especially for their valued clients, and key executives frequently walk on stage with a few scribbled notes they just put together and deliver very poor speeches.
Celebrity:
The weather was bad and nationwide all planes delayed. A celebrity speaker refused
to even go to the airport. I told the client I would deliver two speeches, my own and one in her place. He stood up and said, “I will never overlook the opportunity to bad mouth ‘the celebrity for…’ and take every chance to rave about Patricia Fripp.”
How do you determine from which sources to accept advice?
Recommendations and their track record.
All of us have failed and learned from it. Do you have a favorite “flop”?
Speaking for gravel quarry workers who were drunk. They would have been better off hiring a stripper.
What did I learn? When an insurance company executive who likes you and your message wants to sponsor you for a safety banquet for blue-collar workers, and they are going to have an open bar, go with your first response, “I do not think I am a fit for the audience.” That week I had no other bookings, it was close to home, the more I protested the higher the fee. Overly confident from past success I thought, “How bad could it be?” I found out!
You’re an excellent speaking coach. What are the traits of an outstanding speaking coach?
Very few great speakers are good coaches. Delivering a good speech does not require the same skills as helping others structure, script, and deliver a speech on a subject the coach knows nothing about. I have learned from different coaches who specialize in structure and others in performance.
The reason I believe my clients keep coming back is my multifaceted approach. As well as having spoken to audiences of all sizes myself, and familiar with business and sales, I add best practices from Marquee comedians, Las Vegas entertainers, and Hollywood screenwriters to my client’s business communications. Over the years I have developed the ability to ask my clients questions, take their answers, edit and polish them, and put the answers back in their mouths. This way it is easier for them to remember. We conversationally write their speeches.
What were the biggest obstacles, and how did you overcome them?
To be honest I do not perceive I have experienced obstacles beyond time management.
However, to generalize:
As a novice, not knowing where to start and getting audiences.
As a beginner, how to adapt our message to multiple audiences and make it relevant.
As a professional, how to manage our time between business and performing.
Suffering from ‘recency bias.’ When the phone does not ring, you imagine it never will. When business is superb, you forget the cycles of business. Your demand will go down. We must develop a balanced business model.
As a seasoned veteran, to stay excited and relevant.
What final words and ideas do you want to leave with our readers?
The best part of the professional speaking and training business is the education it provides. We learn a lot about many industries that makes us more valuable to others. Unlike Hollywood, a few lines and grey hair add to the credibility.
Alan Weiss, PhD, CMC, CSP,CPAE author of 37 books is the consultant’s consultant, Patricia Fripp CSP, CPAE is the speaker’s speaker. Together they are The Odd Couple™ the yearly marketing and strategy seminar for speakers, consultants and professional speakers.
This weekend Darren and I conduct our speech coaching camp in Las Vegas. However, to start the celebrations we are going to Darren's Launch party I will be adding a few comments on humor in public speaking. Then I am followed by two Vegas headliners. What is a girl to do!
Public Speaking Advice & New Jersey "Presenting for Results" seminar
On the podium, lean down hill
Sims Wyeth my East Coast Fripp Associate and all around great guy and superb speech coach wrote this…
At Snowbird in Utah, a friend led me to a slope so steep I didn’t dare lean down hill, which is exactly what I should have done. Instead, I leaned back in fear, fell hard, and slid headfirst to the bottom.
My belief that I couldn’t handle the situation made me fearful and tentative. I argued for my limitations, and I got to keep them.
As a speaker, when you get to the front of the room, get committed to your message. Don’t be tentative. Lean down hill.
Sims is re-launching his public seminar called Presenting for Results SM.
If you are in New Jersey this is a great event!
Oct 19th and 20th, 2010.
They kick it off at the Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, NJ, which is on Rte. 3 East, just east of the Garden State Parkway.
There is very limited enrollment to keep it practical and interactive.
http://www.simswyeth.com/services/pfr/
Good Public Speaking Advice Avoid Clichés Like the Plague
Ideas on public speaking and presentations by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE
Whether you're writing or speaking, clichés will weaken your message and cause your audience to tune out. Here are Fripp's Four Foolproof Tips for making your point:
•You MUST use original material.
•The audience will forgive you ANYTHING but being boring.
•If someone else has already said it, say it in a completely different way.
•If it's a cliché, throw it out!
Sol Stein's advice in DIALOGUE FOR WRITERS is equally useful for speakers: "The majority of novels are turned down, even those written by well-educated people, because they are cliché-ridden. And so is a lot of popular fiction that does get published."
He says, "A cliché is a hackneyed phrase -- stale, trite, banal, commonplace, corny, dull, musty, redundant, repetitious, tedious, threadbare, timeworn, tired, tiresome, worn-out, boring. If you prefer to focus on just one definition, it should be 'tired from over use.' Clichés weaken your message, having little or no effect on the reader.
"Words have power. Words strung together in clichés have lost some or all of their power. Clichés are a sign of a tired mind that settles for a well-worn rut instead of climbing to exciting new heights. Your job as a writer is to energize people, not put them to sleep."
When I was conducting a two-day speaking school in Las Vegas, a handsome, well-spoken student gave an eloquent talk -- but it was all rehashes of material from motivational books he had read. Everyone had heard the messages before, over and over. No one felt any connection to the student. Everyone was bored, yet he had lived a fascinating life that his audience wanted to hear about. So I asked him to describe his life, starting at the beginning. I call this the "once upon a time" technique. As he spoke, he became excited, and his audience did too. Within his reminiscences was fresh, stimulating original material that could become the core of his message.
Have confidence in your own viewpoints. Tell your story on paper or record. Then go back and prune out any clichés that have crept in. Replace them with invigorating new phrases, forceful enough to make your message memorable and your audience riveted.
Patricia Fripp and Darren LaCroix next public speaking class and coaching camp is in Las Vegas October 1-3.
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How to Create an A World Champions' Edge Weekly Audio Lesson Time: 14:46 Minutes |
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World Champions' EDGE is an affordable way to take your speaking to the next level; learn directly from Patricia Fripp and 4 award-winning speakers who are exactly where you want to be. Our Champions' EDGE Faculty has a combined ninety-nine years of experience as sought-after keynote speakers and in-demand speech coaches for top corporate leaders and celebrity speakers. World Champions' EDGE Members, have access to them and their advice. Members benefit from their wisdom via a vast resource library, weekly audio lessons, monthly coaching calls, celebrity interviews, and live in-person events. World Champions' Edge speaking coaches get thousands of dollars per day for coaching... by joining the EDGE community members benefit from the same advice at a significantly lower price. Why not take advantage of a trial membership? Just $1 for a 30-day trial. |
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Danny Cox, CPAE is a giant in the professional speaking world. Author of Leadership When the Heat’s On and known as the Sonic Boom Salesman. Danny has the ability to attract interesting friends. On Danny’s left is Big Dave Mattey who is an actor and stuntman who works in a lot of science fiction and monster movies. However, check his website. He has been in major movies including The Spy Next Door with Jackie Chan. He's 6' 10" tall. On Danny’s right is Sidney Wicks. Sidney is 6'8" and is in the UCLA basketball Hall of Fame and was an All-American. In Sidney’s career he played with the Portland Trail Blazers, Cleveland Cavaliers, and spent most of his career with the Boston Celtics.
Yes Danny is standing up. However, all his clients, audiences and members of our elite speaking group Speakers Roundtable know him as a big guy! That has nothing to do with size.
The photo was taken at the wedding of Vandy who is the daughter our friend Vonda Kay Van Dyke Scoates. Vonda was 1965 Miss America named on September 13, 1964. She had previously been Miss Arizona. She is unique among pageant winners in that she was and still is the only Miss America who was also Miss Congeniality. This year Vonda took THE Executive Speech Coach Patricia Fripp to one evening of the Miss American Pageant. I was amazed at so many beautiful young women with so much talent.
Forrest Gump is alive and well! YOU can find him in convention halls, conference centers and as I did on Pier 39 in San Francisco. One thing you can take to the bank, no matter what the size of his audience he keeps them smiling and having fun.
OK! You are right Forrest Gump is a character in a movie. However, when you meet my new friend and National Speakers Association member Steve Weber you want to buy into the fantasy.
He has an amazing story about how he used his Gumption and parlayed his resemblance to Tom Hanks
(ever since Tom's Bosom Buddies days) into convincing Bubba Gumps restaurant chain to hire him to entertain their customers on the way in. We had lunch in the Bubba Gump restaurant in San Francisco. What a good job they do in carrying out the theme. Our server Chris Gewehr had not met Steve before. Chris had seen the movie 30 times BEFORE he was hired. He tried his best to stump Steve with movie trivia.
My brush with fame was amazing and fun.
I learned Steve Weber is a hot up and comer in my world of professional speaking.
You can sell an idea that leads to a new career is you have Gumption.
Bubba Gumps is a fun chain and theme their restaurants well. Food to great as well.
By the amount of people who went to Pier 39 that Sunday people are spending $.
If you go for lunch ask for server Chris Gewehr. Tell him Forrest and Fripp say "Hi!"
One of the benefits of membership in World Champion's Edge the public speaking community founded by Darren LaCroix, 2001 Toastmasters International World Champion of Public Speaking...is the Edge Forum where the members ask questions of each other, and the faculty, I am the World Champion's Plus One as I do not share their title!
One of our members wanted help with opening a speech on Simplicity. This is my answer. (He benefited from many others) The ... means pause.
Patricia Fripp recommendation for opening for your Simplicity speech:
Walk out and smile...make eye contact...hold it for 10 seconds... move forward a few steps...hold it and smile...make eye contact for 5 seconds. Ask "Why is our world so complex? How do you think the quality of our existence would improve if we just added....more magical moments of...simplicity? In my opinion...it would be simplify marvelous."
Darren La Croix and I are delivering a one day speaking school and two day coaching camp in Las Vegas October 1-3. Check in out.
For learning materials on Public Speaking check my site.
I have just finished making a CD called Rock Star Communications: How to Inspire Action and Commitment. My next project is writing the eBook to go with it. The title came from a time when one of my clients asked me to tune their shy, modest, brilliant, engineer President into a rock star!
He was one of my favorite executive clients...and yes!!! 1,500 sales people thought he WAS a rock star of a presenter and leader.
My friend keynote speaker and Emmy winning pal Bill Stainton delivers a great keynote speech about the 5 best decisions the Beatles made and why we should adapt them. At the National Speakers Association convention in the year that NSA Rocked he gave one of the most fun, exciting, creative keynotes I have ever heard. He challenged us to Shake It Up!
His session opened with a Beatles Band and after the first song Ringo walked to the front of the stage, pulled of his wig and it was…Bill Stainton. The audience went wild! He closed back with the band for a final song. 1,500 professional speakers of all ages acted as if they were at a rock show. It took 5 minutes for us to calm down.
Here are some of the photos. If I ask nicely maybe Bill will let me use a few for my eBook!
Check out his website.
On thing you have to admit...Patricia Fripp has a rock star brother Robert Fripp, a rock star sister-in-law Toyah Willcox, a friend in Bill who incorporates rock stars as part of his convention keynotes. Also, once in a while I help executives become rock star business presenters. What a fun life!
Based on constant demand I have found myself delivering speech coaching on the phone.
We are getting serious about talking this to the next level. Check out a little of my virtual office.
Stay tuned...go visit Fripp Virtual.
Tonight’s World Champion’s Edge TeleSeminar is on
"How to Bring Your Characters to Life" in your public speaking and sales presentations.
You may be interested in my opening comments.
1. As a speaker we need to help the audience to see our characters.
We must learn to paint a picture of them…and give enough of their background for the listeners to understand why they may do what they in our stories or examples.
It may help to put a time frame on the story.
In my classic Larry Mariottini story,
I let the audience know…it was 10.45 am on a Tuesday in 1975.
When I introduce him as … “You might say he was NERD…long before I knew what
one was…or that I would want to grow up and be one.”
2. It is a good idea to not insult your protagonist or hero especially if you are speaking to an audience that is technical!
By letting the audience knows when your story happened it helps them SEE how he might look compared to now as a systems engineer.
Another example is my Nancy Albertson story about how her idea made Sprint $13 million dollars. When I asked Nancy her title she said “I’m just a secretary. I guess you’d call me a big gal with BIG ideas!”
3. If you interview people for stories they write them for you!
As you know a good portion of my business comes from sales presentation skills training.
When I coach my sales professionals to tell their happy client testimonials I recommend you always give your clients title, the CFO of Cisco would tell you…. Or the 18 year veteran of the Human Resources department.
4. This is helping to give their client characters a business “backstory.” With this much experience it is logical that they would make better decisions. That makes the decision for the prospect easier.
5. We bring our characters to life through some of the verbs we use.
"Fred casually sauntered into the boss’s office" vs "Fred rushed breathless into the boss’s office."
Please note I am taking a lesson from the brilliant Mark Brown who taught us in a recent EDGE lesson about the importance of adjectives and adverbs.
6. We bring our characters to life through their dialogue. What do they say…“I’m just a secretary. I guess you’d call me a big gal with BIG ideas!”
One of my examples from coaching an executive who sat this children down the day after Christmas and he said, “You are very lucky children, you have generous parents and even more generous grandparents. Perhaps you would like to give one of your gift certificates back and we can send the money to children who do not have homes.” He told me “I was so proud of my little boy. He came back and said “Papa…how much do I give? I could give you all or my savings, all of my pocket money, and all of my gifts and there still would not be enough to make a difference.”
My CEO client Bernard said, “You never give it all. You just give enough that it hurts a little.”
Want to try World Champion’s Edge for a month for $1?
World Champion Darren LaCroix and I are delivering a three day public speaking and coaching camp October, 1-3 in Las Vegas.
The photo is of Darren LaCroix and Patricia Fripp at the National Speakers Association convention
Physical Preparation for Successful Public Speaking.
Physical Preparation: Warm up and relax your body and face.
a. If you're wearing high heels take them off. Now, stand on one leg and shake the other. When you put your foot back on the ground it's going to feel lighter than the other one. Now, switch legs and shake. You want your energy to go through the floor and out of your head. This sounds quite cosmic; it isn't. It's a practical technique used by actors.
b. Shake your hands...fast. Hold them above your head, bending at the wrist and elbow and then bring your hands back down. This will make your hand movements more natural.
c. Warm up your face muscles by chewing in a highly exaggerated way. Do shoulder and neck rolls. Imagine that you're eye level with a clock. As you look at 12, pull as much of your face up to 12 as you can; now move it to 3, then down to 6 and finally over to 9.
All of these exercises serve to warm you up and relax you. Those exaggerated movements make it easier for your movements to flow more naturally.
Preparation is a key element to making a solid presentation. Here are a few tips that will help you make an effective presentation.
To learn more about how you design a good presentation, add humor and stories to your public speaking come the the Patricia Fripp and Darren laCroix Structure and Stories Presentation Skills Seminar and stay for their Public Speaking Coaching Camp.
Alan Weiss & Patricia Fripp: Memories of The Odd Couple 2010 every year Alan Weiss, the consultant's consultant and have help speakers and consultants build a more profitable business. Alan is brilliant.
Ouor audience enjoys seeing us agree and disagree about what matters most to them
They see us have fun...
A highlight of every The Odd Couple is having attendees sit in the hot seat and receive the best business advice. Here is long time Alan Weiss mentee Ed Poll.
A new program this year is The Odd Couple Community. This is a way our attendees can have access to us all year round. Next year's The Odd Couple 2011 is in Las Vegas at the Platinum Hotel June 25-26.
What a great day! Working with Don Yaeger the best selling author of Never Die Easy. He has interviewed most of the greatest sports stars and talks about what makes the great ones great.
It is so exciting working with a great speaker and helping them great with adding more dialogue, editing a few words at a time. Check his website it is really fun! Hope you can hear his story about Michael Jordan!
Here in Orlando for the National Speakers Association Convention.
Just left the Speakers Roundtable meeting in Vancouver. Hosted by Peter Legge and the photograph is from our evening at Joe & Rosalie Segal's. Now packing the same fancy clothes for NSA!
Here I am with Dan Maddux, Executive Director of the American Payroll Association.
Ed Tate is the 2000 Toastmasters International World Champion of Public Speaking.
He is also one of my co-authors in Speaker's Edge book.
He is also one of my partners in World Champions Edge public speaking coaching community. One important lesson I have learned from him is to "Have an emergency end to your speech."
At the National Speakers Association convention in Orlando on Monday, July 19 at 3.45-5.15pm I will be quoting him in my presentation "How to Go from Good to Great to Awesome."
Ed told me "Here is what I was going to say for the ending to my championship speech:
"The gate agent presented me with a First Class Ticket on the two O’clock flight to Phoenix.
Friends, every now and then we must step outside of our comfort zone. We must answer that voice in our head and heart. The voice inside all of us. It is the voice of our conscience. The voice that questions, ‘What is the right thing to do?’ The voice that cries out, ‘If not you then who?’ It was like I said all along, I knew it was going to be (Audience completes the sentence) One of those days!"
Emergency ending:
"It was like I told you from the beginning, I knew it was going to be (Audience completes the sentence)
One of those days." "
To learn from Ed Tate check out his brilliant learning materials on public speaking.
Why not investigate Patricia Fripp and Darren La Croix's next coaching camp?
www.worldchampslive.com/champcamp-coach.html
Mark Dery sent me the entire article from his interview in 1985.
However, I enjoyed his modern day comment...
"Incidentally, Mr Fripp's moonlighting as a motivational speaker makes perfect sense. In my years in the golden ghetto of rock journalism, I interviewed scores of musicians, most of whom impressed me as barely articulate creatures of very little brain, dull as a doorknob and culturally illiterate about anything but music. Mr. Fripp was a striking departure from that dreary norm, preternaturally articulate, with an omnivorous mind and a dry, nimble wit. Which was why I always lept at the opportunity to interview him."
Best, M. Dery
Thanks Mark!
Robert Fripp: The 21st Century Man Sounds Off
Mark Dery, Record Magazine, November 1985
HE BEGAN, by his own admission, tone deaf and with "no sense of rhythm." He is a spit-shined, manicured man whose "best subjects at school were always English literature and English language." He is guitarist Robert Fripp, and would seem more at home beating the pants off an Oxford dean at Trivial Pursuit than laying down the febrile, ostinato runs that are his sonic signature.
There's always been a bit of Mr. Chips lurking behind the man who brought us '21st Century Schizoid Man', 'Starless and Bible Black', 'Lark's Tongues in Aspic' and other rock anomalies. In fact, Fripp the pundit seems to have taken the driver's seat these days. Fripp the blistering axemaster, whose brain child King Crimson played mix 'n' match, shake 'n' stir with jazz noodlings, Romantic Classicism, pan-ethnic snippets, and a liberal dose of snarling, unshaven metal guitar from 1969-1974, seems somewhat overshadowed. "What am I actually doing at the moment?" Fripp asks. "Teaching guitar in West Virginia at the American School for Continuous Education, at Claymont, near Charlestown." The Society is an educational charity of which Fripp was elected President after a retreat in the woodland nook during the last three months of '84.
Initially finagled into giving the odd guitar seminar, Fripp has committed himself wholeheartedly. "I've had five seminars so far, 91 students. They come for five-and-a-half or six-and-a-half days; we live and work together intensively on what is called guitarcraft." The course incorporates manual exercises formulated by a 13-year-old Fripp, who even then realized that plectrum players, unlike classical violinists or cellists, had no real methodology to guide their first, fumbling steps. "Relaxation, attention and sensitivity" are also stressed, qualities that Fripp has described elsewhere as the "three disciplines: of the hands, the head, and the heart." In cahoots with fellow instructor Bob Gerber, Fripp lectures on "systematics of performance," with forays into yogic theory and visual perception exercises.
Participants have averaged in number from 16-21 per course, and ensemble classes alternate with one-on-one daily instruction from Fripp. Graduates are logged in a "League of Crafty Guitarists" Directory which networks them within a geographical grid to aid and abet future collaborations. An added guitarcraft attraction is Fripp's revised standard tuning for the guitar, intended to replace the extant E-A-D-G-B-E tuning. "It's better for beginners, better for advanced players, better for single lines, better for chords, it's better," asserts Fripp. "It wasn't 'a brighter idea from Robert' – it presented itself while I was sweating in the sauna of the Aqua Health Spa on Thompson and Bleecker." Asked to reveal the revolutionary tuning, Fripp flashes a vulpine grin, pauses for an imaginary drumroll, and coyly announces that he'll go public all in good time. Fretboard neophytes who can't wait may want to pack their gig bags and mosey southward, first dropping a line to Robert Fripp/Guitarcraft Seminars, c/o A.S.C.E., Route 1, Box 279, Charlestown, W. Va., 25414, (304) 725-4437.
Although Fripp the academician has stolen the spotlight, Fripp the fretboard banshee is still close at hand in the wings – or more appropriately, in the orchestra pit. Recent vinyl ventures include what a Jem Records release (with tongue tucked firmly in cheek) calls "specially remixed and strategically repackaged" versions of material originally cut for Britain's Polydor and since gone out of print.
Exposure, first released in 1979 after Fripp scuttled King Crimson for the mothballed Ironsides it had become ("When King Crimson finished in '74," Fripp once noted in a New York Times interview, "it was the last possible moment for anything to have stopped."), reappears in a digitally souped-up incarnation. "One or two vocal lines are slightly different," Fripp remarks, adding that the digital remix "...is infinitely better...not so much hiss; it's remarkable how much our expectations of equipment have changed."
God Save The King also resurrects earlier LPs, stripping and refinishing doodads from Under Heavy Manners/God Save The Queen – Fripp's 1980 amalgam of beat-crazy rave-ups and lighter-than-air lead loops – and a later disc, The League of Gentlemen (1981), which married the unlikely bedfellows of slam-dunk skinhead thrash and Fripp's own brand of oh-so-cybernetic dentist's drill soloing. "I've taken the material which I thought was worth keeping and changed it quite substantially," Fripp points out, "the mixing is vastly different, (and) I added a guitar solo to 'God Save The Queen' (the 'Zero of Signified' in formerlife.)" While re-releasing a record for the sake of some knob-twiddling and a little overdubbed fretwork may seem like much ado about nothing, this is no meat-and-potatoes playing. 'God Save The King' is 13 minutes and eleven seconds of guitar pyrotechnics so scorching the man must've been wearing a welder's mask and playing with an asbestos pick. Gutsy, gritty, this is music with canines, the kind of soloing that raises hackles and makes Dobermans howl.
A slightly truncated version (6:40) of the same song pops up on Network, the third in this series, a 12" mini-LP that pits Fripp's lyrical, mellifluous side mano a mano against his gnarly, warts-and-all side. Eno lends sighing synth on 'North Star', Peter Gabriel guest vocals on the Ice Age ballad 'Here Comes The Flood' (both culled from Exposure) and head Head David Byrne contributes knock-kneed, hopped-up vocals to 'Under Heavy Manners' (excerpted from God Save The Queen). Fripp gives this sampler his stamp of approval, calling it, "music that I can personally listen to at any time of day or night." By his own assessment, the material "stands up remarkably well, doesn't sound dated to me."
Other pots on Fripp's many burners include The Noise and Three of a Perfect Pair, concert videos recorded, respectively, in Frejus, France (1982) and Tokyo, Japan (1984) with the reincarnated Crimson – Adrian Belew (guitar/vocals), Tony Levin (bass/Chapman Stick), Bill Bruford (Kit drums/Electronic' percussion), and, of course, Fripp. Fripp judges the French gig "quite a good show" but admits he "wasn't awfully happy" with the Japanese concert, which lacked the Crimson kineticism that separates the 21st Century Schizoid men from the boys.
Borrowing from a seemingly inexhaustible font of creative juice, Fripp is also slated to hook up again with the vocal group the Roches for a "Roche, Roche, Fripp and Roche" serving of Christmas songs.
Production chores entail overseeing an album of the piano pieces of Gurdjieff and Thomas De Hartmann by New York pianist Elan Sicroff.
Additionally, Fripp sat in on ex-Japan lead singer David Sylvian's recent solo LP, The Holy Blood of Saints and Sheep, an acid test for the new tuning he now uses exclusively. His rustiness with it, he laughingly recalls, resulted in "flurries of bum notes" in spots, but he found Sylvian's record "beautiful music," and "was very pleased to have the opportunity to play on it."
And as if that weren't enough, Fripp has donated his talents to the worthy cause of a fund-raiser to bail out the ailing Childrens' School in Claymont, near the guitarcraft center. English songstress/actress Toyah has been recruited to read Frank Stockton's The Lady or The Tiger and to co-compose the backing music with Fripp. Likewise, durable crony Brian Eno has agreed to read a Stockton story, and add his two cents to the accompanying soundtrack. Fripp comments enthusiastically: "Eno and I work together well; the old chemistry is still there...fire!"
Taking a critical gander at his recent output, Fripp singles out the E.G. remixes of his solo catalogue for critique. "It's interesting to see how much of it stands up today. Not all of it...some of it's a little dated; so-called art rock from the early 70s...sounds very, very weary now and completely out of place." About-facing, he is quick to add, however, that "because a particular piece of music characterizes the spirit of its time doesn't mean it doesn't stand up; it can still be valid today...furniture from the 1920s, for example, is stylized, but some of it reflects its time and still has a quality which persists through time. The problem is if there isn't that quality present." And what is this quintessential quality? Fripp ponders a minute; the sound of gears grinding and cogs turning is almost audible. "It's where the ordinary punter walks into the club, there's a band playing, and he knows something is going on. It will have a certain specific vocabulary, the sound of particular forms of organization, but the quality will be eternal. Whether Orlando Gibbons excites you, Japanese Koto classics make you foam at the mouth, Hendrix bites your bippy or the Sex Pistols had you on your feet gobbing, whatever it is, you know you're alive for that moment."
It is precisely this evanescent, effervescent quality that Fripp has been pursuing throughout his career, a dangling carrot he is fond of referring to as "the capacity to re-experience one's innocence." In his article "Creativity; Finding The Source," he wistfully imagined it as "the kind of thing that keeps a musician working in poor conditions for years in the hope that whatever magic turned a routine gig into a memorable event might one day return."
And in these pages a year ago, Fripp spoke longingly of a significant brush with the same cathartic spark in that "remarkable year" of 1969, when King Crimson was steamrolling all preconceptions of what was pop, razing the icons and salting the ploughed rubble: "After that, it was a question of: magic has just flown by, how does one find conditions in which magic flies by? I'd experienced it – I knew it was real. So where had it gone, how could one entice it back? That's been the process from then till now."
"Now" finds a certain "small, intelligent, highly mobile unit" (Fripp's eponym) at a crossroads of sorts, his solo discography spruced up and refueled, his band idling in the driveway. "King Crimson is a way of doing things," he muses, "I think the band in 1981 – certainly in the second half of the year – was the best performing rock band in the world. After that, it ceased to be a group as much as a collection of individuals." Whither now? "I have no idea. We're all in touch. I have no specific plans – you don't plan King Crimson."
The '85 model is a Fripp in flux. "I view myself as...somehow undefined. What I set out do with intention was to find a way of combining the European tonal harmonic tradition with the Afro-American experience – what would Hendrix sound like playing the Bartok String Quartets? Larks' Tongues in Aspic, '21st Century Schizoid Man' were all part of this. Then after about 1977, it all changed; everyone became more aware of so-called ethnic musics. The extent of forms of organization that were available to the practicing musician extended. If your work happens to be in the marketplace, in the field of popular culture, then an archaic vocabulary is of little use. You speak to people in the language which is current. And that's where I've seen my work go."
A close contender for rock's Most Likely To Be Misunderstood slot, Fripp is seen by many as a tin woodsman with a microtonal heart, a professorial presence noted for blasts of bombast, a well-heeled, dapper demeanor, and a thin-lipped insistence on linguistic exactitude.
In some senses, he is a "Schizoid Man" of his own making, confessing that "I see Robert Fripp as a creature that I inhabit." He can toss off poignant tearjerkers like 'Mary' (Exposure) and on the same record, ear-blistering headbangers like 'Disengage'. He is a man of heavy mannerisms and much metaphor, at once serious and profoundly silly. The founding father of progressive rock, he cut the die for punk; his toxic, caustic guitar calisthenics on Eno's 'Baby's on Fire' (Here Come The Warm Jets) remain prototypical. His sinuous, ethereal Frippertronics have graced mainstream tracks by the likes of Daryl Hall, Blondie, Bowie and Andy Summers as well as underground efforts by Eno, Centipede and other artists. He can be archly ascetic, claiming that his momentous discovery of recent memory was the unearthing of "a very, very academic Hungarian music textbook," the name of which "I'm not going to tell you." At the same time, for all his finger-wagging pedantry, Fripp pursues his lone alchemy "...just so life is right, that's all; when you hit a note and it's right, you don't need any more. You're there with the note." He is, like the narrative voice in 'Under Heavy Manners', "resplendent in divergence," at the least. Trapping the mercuric Fripp in a definition that will stick, even one of his own making, is like trying to drive a thumbtack through a blob of quicksilver:
Q: In your article, "Creativity: Finding The Source," you painted Hendrix and Charlie Parker as part of a metaphorical priesthood. Do you consider yourself a clergyman in that same sense?
A: More of a monk.
Q: In what sense?
A: That's the answer.
© Mark Dery, 1985
Citation (Harvard format)
Robert Fripp, King Crimson/1985/Mark Dery/Record Magazine/Robert Fripp: The 21st Century Man Sounds Off/07/07/2010 19:13:41/http://www.rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=16570
Robert Fripp's speeches on CDs and downloads
Photos from the American Payroll Association
Some of Robert Fripp's fans think he and his sister AKA "Sister Fripp" are an odd couple until they hear us present together.
Another Odd Couple® is with Alan Weiss. We agree and disagree about what matters most to speakers and consultants in our marketing and strategy seminars. They are creatively called The Odd Couple®! Chad Barr who is Alan's website guru said, "I hate to point out you are getting less odd!!"
Perhaps that is because we take some of each other's advice! TOC seminars have been presented every year since 1996.
Here is one of Alan Weiss's answers to an attendee at The Odd Couple.
Q: How do I stand out in the crowd of other consultants and professional speakers?
Alan: “When I started my career, quality circles were very big. I wrote an article called ‘Why Quality Circles Make No Sense.’ Completely contrary. They published it in an instant.
You don’t want to be the 457th person talking about where leaders have high integrity and they’re ethical. You want to talk about the fact, for example, that right now you have two kinds of people in leadership. You have people who are in their 50s and 60s near the top of organizations, who didn’t grow up with diversity, who didn’t grow up with high-tech, who didn’t grow up with instantaneous communications and know nothing about it.
You have a second era of leadership--people in their 30s and 40s--who have never led in down times; they’ve only led in boom economies. Now, given that juxtaposition of these senior people who aren’t used to some conditions and the next level people, you have a leadership crisis.
So, I’ve created a whole new route here. I can do that all day long. I can get anyone interested in what I have to say about leadership; or you name a topic, I’ll make it up. That’s what you have to do.
So, if you want to enter a field, whether it’s team building, or leadership, or priority setting, diversity, whatever it is, come out with your own viewpoint. Read what people have said and then decide how you’ll be slightly different.”
Check out our new service The Odd Couple Community®
If you are familiar with my blog or speaking you realize my brother Robert Fripp often is part of my speaking schools and keynote events. Most recently at the American Payroll Association Congress.
Here is something I picked up in my google alerts! Now you can see why he makes a good speaker.
Robert Fripp: The 21st Century Man Sounds Off
Mark Dery, Record Magazine, November 1985
HE BEGAN, by his own admission, tone deaf and with "no sense of rhythm." He is a spit-shined, manicured man whose "best subjects at school were always English literature and English language." He is guitarist Robert Fripp, and would seem more at home beating the pants off an Oxford dean at Trivial Pursuit than laying down the febrile, ostinato runs that are his sonic signature.
If you want to hear Robert Fripp's spoken word concerts ...
Notes from Robert Fripp at APA.
Today's meeting of the National Speakers Association of Georgia was full of celebrity speakers. My program was "How to go from Good to Great to Awesome."
My World Champions Edge partner Mark Brown came as a guest presenter. Rich Hart, the smart program chair put Mark on the program. He spoke about 2 secret speaking weapons. Adjectives and adverbs. Mark is the 1995 Toastmasters International World Champion.
The much loved and funny June Cline has moved to Arizona and was back on in Atlanta on family business.
Ken Futch had family in town, however when they went sight seeing he came to support Fripp and NSA. Check out his website. He is the only person I know who shot himself in the head, lived and turned it into a rip roaring, hilarious speech that audiences love and corporations pay big bucks to hear.
The audience and I were thrilled to see famous humorist and comedy teacher Jeff Justice. He just came back from a family vacation and did not let jet lag keep him away!
Jeff invested in my learning materials...at the end of this message you can see him handing over his credit card! On his content-rich and fun website he offers plenty of content and free jokes.
Clean Jokes To Go ... from Jeff Justice. Why not sign up for his newsletter? www.jeffjustice.com/humorlettersignup.htm
God is Missing
A couple had two little boys, ages 8 and 10, who were excessively mischievous.
The two were always getting into trouble and their parents could be assured
that if any mischief occurred in their town their two young sons were in some
way involved. The parents were at their wits end as to what to do about their
sons' behavior.
The mother had heard that a clergyman in town had been successful in
disciplining children in the past, so she asked her husband if he thought they
should send the boys to speak with the clergyman.
The husband said, "We might as well. We need to do something before I really
lose my temper!"
The clergyman agreed to speak with the boys, but asked to see them
individually. The 8-year-old went to meet with him first.
The clergyman sat the boy down and asked him sternly, "Where is God?"
The boy made no response, so the clergyman repeated the question in
an even sterner tone, "Where is God?" Again the boy made no attempt to
answer, so the clergyman raised his voice even more and shook his finger
in the boy's face, "WHERE IS GOD?"
At that the boy bolted from the room and ran directly home slamming himself
in his closet. His older brother followed him into the closet and said, "What
happened?" The younger brother replied, "We are in BIG trouble this time.
God is missing and they think we did it!"
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