Elmer Wheeler’s Tested Public Speaking [Second Edition]
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“As usual, Elmer Wheeler has based this book not on fancy, academic rules, but rather on his own practical experience as an outstanding speaker in his own right.”
Elmer Wheeler
Elmer Wheeler (1903-1968): Autor, orador y experto en ventas. Nacido en Rochester, Nueva York, Elmer Wheeler residió en Dallas, Texas, durante más de 30 años y residió allí hasta el momento de su muerte en octubre del año 1968. Su frase "No venda la tajada; venda su sabor" se transformó en una filosofía empresarial que condujo a la creación de un laboratorio de palabras conocido como "Sizzle Labs", para pesar y medir la capacidad relativa de las palabras para motivar a las personas. Más de 125 universidades, escuelas de negocios e individuos enseñan los métodos de Sizzle Lab. Hombres y mujeres de la Fuerza Aérea reciben capacitación mensual en los métodos de Sizzle Lab. Marine Corps también usan sus métodos para reclutar. Incluso los presos federales toman su curso en los centros de rehabilitación. Como conferencista, Wheeler ganó el primer y único Oscar que alguna vez se otorgó a un orador público. En el Dallas Cotton Bowl atrajo a 20,000 vendedores, tenedores de libros, secretarias y otros para aprender cómo hacer más amigos y conseguir más ventas. Dio conferencias para más de 50 Clubes de Ventas Americanos, los Jaycees y las cámaras de comercio.
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Elmer Wheeler’s Tested Public Speaking [Second Edition] - Elmer Wheeler
This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.pp-publishing.com
To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books—picklepublishing@gmail.com
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Text originally published in 1947 under the same title.
© Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Publisher’s Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.
ELMER WHEELER’S TESTED PUBLIC SPEAKING
BY
ELMER WHEELER
Second Edition
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 4
DEDICATION 6
AN OSCAR
TO ELMER WHEELER—FIRST IN AMERICA! 7
PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD 8
CHAPTER 1—PICK THE SIZZLE 9
CHAPTER 2—LET THE AUDIENCE SNIFF THE SIZZLE—IN THE FIRST TEN SECONDS 12
CHAPTER 3—SERVE THE STEAK THE WAY THEY WANT IT 15
CHAPTER 4—REMEMBER THE DESSERT 17
CHAPTER 5—IT’S DONE WITH MIRRORS 20
CHAPTER 6—I DIDN’T KNOW THIS 2,798 SPEECHES AGO! 22
CHAPTER 7—YOU CAN’T MAKE A SPEECH THROUGH FALSE WHISKERS 26
CHAPTER 8—EXCITE ’EM, ANNOY ’EM, OR STARTLE ’EM 30
CHAPTER 9—DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR GIVING A SPEECH 32
CHAPTER 10—YOUR SPEECH BEGINS THE MOMENT YOU REACH THE PLATFORM 36
CHAPTER 11—GIVE YOUR AUDIENCE A CHOICE—BETWEEN SOMETHING AND SOMETHING! 39
CHAPTER 12—SYNCHRONIZE YOUR SIZZLES WITH SHOWMANSHIP 41
CHAPTER 13—THE XYZ FORMULA FOR MAKING WORD MAGIC 44
CHAPTER 14—DON’T BE A HASH THINKER
—STICK TO ONE POINT 48
CHAPTER 15—GET AUDIENCE ACTION WITH QUESTION MARKS 51
CHAPTER 16—DON’T POINT YOUR FINGER AT THE AUDIENCE 56
CHAPTER 17—THE SCARECROW ISN’T SUPPOSED TO MAKE A SPEECH 59
CHAPTER 18—WHAT TO DO WHEN DISTRACTIONS OCCUR 62
CHAPTER 19—TELL IT ON YOURSELF 65
CHAPTER 20—UNCLE JOE CANNON TRADEMARKS
HIMSELF WITH HAYSEEDS 67
CHAPTER 21—DON’T USE SIX-BIT WORDS 70
CHAPTER 22—KEEP YOUR SPEECH OUT OF THE LAND OF NOD 74
CHAPTER 23—THE ART OF NOT DOING IT TOO WELL 76
CHAPTER 24—BELLS, BARKS, WHISTLES, AND DRUMS 78
CHAPTER 25—THE TRUTH IS GOOD ENOUGH 82
CHAPTER 26—HOW TO KEEP AN AUDIENCE OF SALESMEN AWAKE 87
CHAPTER 27—THE CHAIRMAN WHO FLOPS
CAN FLOP YOU 90
CHAPTER 28—A FEW HINTS TO THE TOASTMASTER 93
CHAPTER 29—MAKE YOUR RADIO SPEECH SIZZLE 96
CHAPTER 30—YOU CAN’T LEARN WHILE YOUR MOUTH IS OPEN 99
CHAPTER 31—DON’T LET IN CONCLUSION
BE SWEET WORDS TO YOUR AUDIENCE 107
CHAPTER 32—THE CORNERED PANTHER YAWNS AND STRETCHES 109
CHAPTER 33—DON’T BRING A SOAPBOX TO THE PLATFORM 112
CHAPTER 34—HOW TO HANDLE AND FEED SPEAKERS 114
A WORD FROM THE PUBLISHER 120
MAGIC WORDS THAT MAKE PEOPLE BUY 121
JUST ANOTHER WORD 138
TAKE AN HOUR TO SAY… NO
139
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 144
DEDICATION
To
AMON CARTER
a great Texas "Sizzler"
AN OSCAR
TO ELMER WHEELER—FIRST IN AMERICA!
RECENTLY THE EDITORS of the American Business Magazine, of the Dartnell Publications, made a survey of five hundred luncheon clubs to find out, among other things, who is rated America’s Most Popular Speaker.
Elmer Wheeler won that popularity contest!
He received 125 per cent MORE VOTES than the Number Two choice, which was Eric Johnston.
He was given more votes than such famous personalities as B. C. Forbes, Red
Motley, Kettering of General Motors, and others.
It is only natural that America’s Number One Speaker
should be able to give you Number One advice on how to win an audience and make them like you.
PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD
2,798 Speeches Ago!
IT WAS A MATTER of 2,798 speeches ago that Elmer Wheeler wrote his Tested Public Speaking.
Since that time he has not rested on his laurels; in fact, during 1945 alone, he spoke to well over 1,000,000 people.
It is his ambition to beat the record of Dr. Russell Conway, who gave his immortal talk, Acres of Diamonds, over 5,000 times.
We asked Elmer Wheeler to bring his Tested Public Speaking up to date, with revised material based on the experience acquired in the course of giving 2,798 additional speeches.
That material is incorporated in this second edition of Tested Public Speaking, together with his talk, Take an Hour to Say No, which has been reprinted over 7,000,000 times—a record!
As usual, Elmer Wheeler has based this book not on fancy, academic rules, but rather on his own practical experience as an outstanding speaker in his own right.
CHAPTER 1—PICK THE SIZZLE
(Wheelerpoint 1)
IT’S THE SIZZLE that sells the steak, not the cow!
Whatever you are going to talk about has a sizzle. When the Democrats wanted to re-elect Woodrow Wilson in 1916, they seized upon the one outstanding fact of his first administration—He kept us out of war!
That was the sizzle as far as the Democratic party was concerned.
The sizzle, then, is the core of your speech—the point of the argument. It’s the reason you are talking. It’s what you want, or the answer to what you want. The sizzle is usually the emotional side of the argument, the side that makes people want to do something for you—more than the money it may cost, or the time it may take.
It’s the tang in the cheese, the crunch in the cracker, the whiff in the coffee, the pucker in the pickle, the bubbles in the bottle—that make you want these things.
People are responding to sizzles all day long—every day.
SO PICK THE SIZZLE FOR YOUR SPEECH!
If you are going to talk at the next luncheon meeting on Throwing the Crooked Politicians out of Office,
decide why they should be thrown out, especially as your listeners may be affected. The sizzle you pick might be this: Every single day these fellows are in office they are wasting $426 of your money!
The rule is simple—First find your sizzle.
Suppose you want to give a speech on the danger of fast driving. The sizzle, of course, is the fact that the listeners themselves may be hit—that very night. Their sons, daughters, fathers, or mothers may be struck by some reckless motorist. Of course, the sizzle has to be dressed up so that it gets across successfully, but first you must decide what it is.
Let’s take something hard. You have been in Ethiopia studying the manufacture of a hypothetical Smoky-Blue glass. Your Chamber of Commerce wants to know about it.
What’s the sizzle?
That the glass is pretty? That your glass factories could make it? That it can be imported cheaply from Ethiopia?
Probably none of these things would interest your Chamber of Commerce. They are important, yes—like the hoofs and the hide of the cow. But a cow couldn’t walk through a restaurant taking orders for her tenderloin! She needs the sizzle to sell her steaks, and you need one to sell your idea to the Chamber of Commerce.
To them the sizzle is: we can bring new blood and new money to this town if we go into this. There you’ve got the big sizzle—the important emotional urge in your proposition. Right in the laps of your audience!
Pick the sizzle—that’s the first law of building a talk.
WHEN YOU PICK THE SIZZLE, STICK TO IT
Before you begin your speech, you’ve got to sit down with paper and pencil and figure out what your sizzle is going to be—that big urge that will catch the audience right between the eyes! That will have the same effect on them as the sizzling of a steak does in a restaurant.
But one word of caution: when you have your sizzle, stick to it. Let it run through your speech like a lifeline. Come back to it from different angles.
Taking the Smoky-Blue glass again, as an example, you could talk about the method of marketing the glass, if you wanted to appeal to the advertising men in your audience, or the publishers, printers, and paper men. Or you could talk about sales in the stores, or increased payrolls and bank deposits. All these appeals bear your sizzle: new blood—new money.
Once you’ve decided upon your sizzle, stay with it—don’t lose it in a cloud of nebulous language. When you’ve got the sizzle clear in your mind, don’t bury it in verbiage.
When people are eating steak they don’t want side dishes of hamburger and chow mein. Serve the steak straight—not in goulash.
Too many colors spoil the necktie—too many sizzles confuse the audience, and make them ear-blind
just the way too many colors make them eye-blind.
Stick to the sizzle—and the audience will stick by you.
HOW TO FIND THE SIZZLES
Now that you have an idea of what sizzles are, here is how to find them quickly: put on a pair of sizzle specs
and look at your speech through the eyes of the audience.
Get their point of view!
What you may think is a sizzle, the audience is liable to think is a fizzle. But not if you look at your sizzles through their eyes. What do they want? What interests them?
Have you-ability
—the ability to think you
and not I.
You
is a gracious word—I
a miserly one.
Be you-minded!
Let the other fellow hear about the benefits and advantages to him. What you will get will take care of itself.
So if you want to find the sizzles in your speech and make sure they aren’t fizzles, ask yourself this: "What would interest me if I were the audience?" That’s how to be a red-hot sizzler!
All of which sums up in one ten-second message:
Sell the sizzle and not the steak to your audience. Pick your sizzles with "sizzle specs" on, so you’ll know they won’t fizzle. Then stick to the sizzle!
It’s the Sizzle that Sells the Steak and not the Cow.
CHAPTER 2—LET THE AUDIENCE SNIFF THE SIZZLE—IN THE FIRST TEN SECONDS
(Wheelerpoint 2)
WHEN YOU ARE suddenly face to face with an audience, you have only ten short seconds to put yourself across: your first ten seconds are more important than your next ten minutes! At least if you miss getting the audience with you in your first ten words, it may take you ten minutes to regain the crowd.
You may never have another chance—so be careful how you begin!
For instance, let’s take the three speeches we mentioned before: you’ve already taken the first step in speech-building by picking out your big sizzle. But if you don’t serve it red-hot, it will flop. Nobody likes cold steak.
Here is how you might serve the sizzle about the crooked politicians with a ten-second sentence:
"Gentlemen, the wife of each one of you wasted $63 today. So did you!"
Flash!
You made the sizzle sizzle. It crashed into the audience and got them on the edge of their seats where they couldn’t fall asleep.
The talk on fast driving might be started off in this way:
One of you gentlemen will be killed and three of you will be maimed for life by automobiles, before the end of this year!
Zoom!
What person will fall asleep on that opener?
But the third case is not so easy. You are talking about a product that is unfamiliar, and, on the face of it, unexciting. How can you put it across? If your audience has never seen a piece of Smoky-Blue glass, you might try an attention-getter like this:
"In my pocket is something no one in this room has ever seen before. Ready? (Pause for a moment) Here it is!"
And out of your pocket comes the sample of Smoky-Blue glass. All eyes are on you; all ears bent forward to catch your every word. You have succeeded because you followed the second law of delivering a speech and that is:
Say it "telegraphically" in your first ten words.
WAKE UP YOUR AUDIENCE IN TEN SECONDS
Suppose your people know all about Smoky-Blue glass. You might wake them up with this statement:
"Bank deposits in Blankville will go up by $350,000—2,200 more men will be employed—purchasing power will be enormously increased. You will all make more money!"
There!
Right between the eyes again with your big sizzle. Dished out red-hot—with the sizzle still sizzling.
Learn this new art of verbal shorthand. Serve your steak in mouth-size pieces. Learn how to speak telegraphically; how to get the same attention from an audience that they each give individually to a telegram when it arrives. Send your sizzle by Special Messenger. You will insure its ready acceptance.
Your speeches will never hit the dead-letter box.
Be specific. People who address letters to General delivery take a greater chance of their letters never reaching the person for whom they’re intended. Address your opening sizzle to the specific audience.
KEEP THE SIZZLE RED-HOT
People haven’t time for long verbal
letters when you stand up in front of them, so don’t start off with:
I’m taking the liberty to...
It gives me great pleasure to be with you...
I must apologize for not being prepared...
Seeing so many kind faces reminds me of the story...
Unaccustomed as I am to making a speech...
Time does not permit...
You’ll have two strikes against you if you start out with bromides like these; your audience will have walked out mentally before you go any farther. When you stand up, don’t hem and haw, don’t stammer and stutter—forget the hoofs and the hide, get down to the juicy steak! And deliver it while it is still red-hot.
When chairs begin to squeak, you know your speech needs heating up—it’s