Make Marketing Suck Less

Speak Like a Winner: A Book Review

Friend and reader of the blog, Akash Karia, sent me a review copy of his book: Speak Like a Winner: Public Speaking System to Make You Twice the Speaker in Half the Time.

Akash's book focuses on 3 speakers who have won the world championship of public speaking and a fourth who appeared on the world stage. Now, some of you might be saying “World championship of public speaking is that a real thing or did you just make that up?” Yes, it is a very real thing that every year thousands upon thousand of Toastmasters compete to see who will be the one. (It's like Highlander for public speaking nerds).

Each champion he features contributed one speech that Akash breaks down and analyzes and illustrates the various techniques these speakers used to ascend to such great heights and then guides the reader through how to use them in their own story.

Since I'm a Toastmaster, Akash is a Toastmaster, (and wouldn't you like to be a Toastmaster too?), I am going to use sandwich method of evaluation – a couple of things that I liked about the book, several points if there were to be another edition I'd love to see expanded on, and then finally what I most enjoyed about this book.

The Good – Amazing Amount of Speaking Tips

This book is overflowing with speaking tips, and even the most seasoned speaker will pick up a trick or two. The best part is that Akash explains the tip and then uses an example from a Champion's speech to show the lesson in action some of my favorites include:

• You-focused (Ok, I did just write about that one too so I'm biased)
• Using the stage to tell your story
• How to make informative presentations fun and interesting
• Using value-laden language

Each of the four selected speeches are enjoyable to read, and Akash does provide links so you can watch the speakers in action.

The Edits – Redundant & Too Specific to Toastmasters

Two of the Champions, Craig Valentine & Darren LaCroix, apply similar types of techniques in their speeches. They execute them differently, but I saw a lot of overlap between the two speakers. It makes me wonder if the book should be organized around different groupings of techniques (e.g. story-telling, stage craft, you-focused) instead of highlighting each individual speaker.

If you are a Toastmaster (and a Toastmaster that wants to win the World Championship of Public Speaking), you are going to love this book. If you are a business person or a small business owner, you will get some value for sure – but I wonder how you can apply some of the learnings here to your type of speaking. Akash does try to apply some of these techniques to business people and other types of speakers, but this book is firmly rooted in Toastmasters.

To dig out of that Toastmaster rut, I'd love to see other types of speech analyzed – for instance TED Talks or Ignite Presentations. I'd enjoy reading how the tips are applied outside of the world of Toastmasters speeches.

The Awesome – Interactive

I really do love all the reflective activities in the book. Before Akash analyzes each speech, he asks the reader to reflect on what they thought about the speech. Then after his analysis, he guides the reader through a series of questions that would allow you to implement some of those techniques the next time you speak.

Overall, this books is crammed full of tips and techniques that can make your next speech standout especially if you are in Toastmasters. Business professionals might have a harder time implementing the techniques, but there are still valuable teachings to be had.

Check it out here and if you are Amzon Prime member you can borrow it for FREE!