About Top Speaker John Bell

Do you need a motivating speech by a top education and business meeting speaker with over 25 years experience?

Providing Serious Talks in a Seriously Funny Way

Motivational education and business speaker John Bell is recognised throughout the world as an authority on people behaviour. He has been speaking professionally for over 25 years and has the special ability to educate whilst entertaining delegates.

John works full-time as an author and a conference, seminar and convention presenter. In addition to motivating delegates, he teaches people how to harness the power of positive thought to succeed in both their personal and professional lives.

An expert on education, John is also very popular with younger audiences and gives a discounted fee for motivational talks at educational establishments.

As a Master of Education and former government Curriculum Development and Evaluation Inspector he is regularly engaged to provide motivational, keynote speeches at events held for delegates involved in education. Consistantly high evaluation scores collated from audiences have quickly made him the most popular speaker at UK educational events.

John is also extremely popular as the after or pre dinner speaker and has a unique style of delivery in that he often allows the audience to chose the topics of his talks. Only the most experienced of speakers, at the top of their profession, would have the courage, confidence and capability to adopt such a style.

He is the author of over 25 books including How to Hypnotise, How to Acquire a Remarkable Memory, and, for those involved in sales, the best seller How to Negotiate. John holds a Master's degree in Education and provides a style of delivery known as EDU~TAIN. A subtle blend of Education and Entertainment.

John is also a former stage hypnotist and stand-up comedian and fascinates delegates as he shares amazing secrets on the workings of the human mind. His fun, relaxed style of presenting is polished and professional.

If you are looking for something that is totally different for your next conference or convention this is the speaker for you. You will find that delegate energy levels will rise significantly through a powerful and magical combination of laughter and amazement.

A great entertainer, John is often invited to compere events as his humorous style of delivery is ideal for the role of Master of Ceremony during the launch of new products and services.

His material is always adapted and presented with the profession of his audience in mind - that's why he is so popular.

His material is clean and suitable for ALL audiences ~ no matter what their age, sex, colour or profession.

As you can see when you check out his biography, John is able to draw upon best practice case studies and real life examples he has collated from thousands of experienced professionals.

John has also had direct involvement in high-level research into human behaviour - providing him with a sound understanding of why people so often behave the way they do. His speeches at business meetings are evidence based.

A Master of Education graduate who was engaged by the UK Government for 4 years as a Curriculum Development and Evaluation expert, John combines an ability to teach adults with a remarkable skill to entertain whilst educating. He calls his unique style of delivery:

EDU-TAINMENT

John Bell builds an inspiring, motivating speech that is just right for your delegates and ensures your event's focus hits the mark and achieves your desired outcome at business meetings. There are showreels available showing John speaking.

USE THIS LINK TO WATCH SHORT VIDEOS

As a vastly experienced public speaker and former stand-up comedian and, in addition to giving educational, fun talks on the main platform of business meetings, also has the ability to entertain your delegates with great after dinner speeches that will have them crying with laughter.

Here is Why Delegates Vote Business Speaker John Bell Top Business Meetings Speaker Time and Time Again.

Business speakers are only as good as their ability to communicate effectively. It does not necessarily follow that an expert on business matters has the know-how to engage, educate and entertain an audience at business meetings.

Professional business speaker John Bell shares some of the top tips that have resulted in him being 'Voted UK Best Speaker of the Year' at business meetings on four occasions.

Some of the world's greatest business minds can ooze confidence and excel as practitioners of business, yet can become shivering wrecks whilst standing behind a lectern facing an unassuming and docile audience at business meetings.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear from the outset ~ quality business speakers are not born with a natural ability to captivate and inform an audience. They have learnt the essential skills required for a polished public speaking performance and then practise and perfect their art at business meetings.

What follows are the basics of giving a public presentation as a business speaker, together with some simple suggestions on how to acquire a noticeable air of confidence whilst presenting in public and at business meetings.

Firstly, as a business speaker you need not only to establish the title of your talk but also the objective of the presentation at the business meeting. e.g. the title may be 'Public Speaking' and the objective could be 'To familiarize delegates with the skills required whilst presenting at a business meeting'.  

You can establish the objective as a business speaker at a business meeting by simply asking ' by the end of my educational, fun talk what would you like the business meeting delegates to do or think?'

When invited to a motivating speech at a business meeting, establish early how many minutes your business speaker masterpiece is expected to last.

In preparation for the task ahead clear your desk of all clutter and you are already on the road to becoming a polished business speaker that will be admired by many at business meetings.

Write the title of your talk and speech objective as a business speaker onto separate Post-its (or scrap papers), and then place them in the centre of your now cleared desk.

Carry out a brainstorming session by writing anything that comes to mind that is connected to your title or business speaker objectives onto additional Post-its and place them around your title and defined objective.

Once you have covered your desk with ideas you might cover at business meetings you will then need to cull. Get rid of anything that is not central to the objectives of your presentation as a business speaker.

Take into account the amount of time that that the business meetings event organisers have set aside for your speech, and the time allocated to you, the business speaker, at the end of your talk to take questions from the audience etc.

Consider each Post-it as no more then two to three minutes in time at business meetings and this will help you improve your time management skills as a business speaker.

Establish order in your business speaker presentation by separating the Post-its and creating a beginning, middle and end in your business meetings speech. The beginning might be related to what existed prior to the production of the a new product, the middle a reference to the main advantages of the product, and the end perhaps some reference to the future benefits the business meetings delegates will achieve when they use the fantastic device.

Now add a Post-it or two to the very beginning of your speech introducing yourself - the business speaker to the audience, together with a brief overview of the content of your talk to be given at the business meeting. (Known as the gestalt).

Add one or two Post-its thoughts at the end of your business meetings talk to act as a finale. The conclusion provided by a business speaker usually consists of little more than a brief summary of the presentation and an equally short 'thank you for listening' comment or an ' any questions in the time remaining at this business meeting?' type statement.

Look again at your timings as a business speaker. If you anticipate one particular Post-it needs to be allocated more than a few minutes this may mean some other Post-it(s) will need to be cut.

When you are totally satisfied and confident about the content and likely duration of your presentation produce an aide-mémoire for use at business meetings when giving the talk.

At quality business meetings the best business speakers don't normally use notes but it is perfectly acceptable for a less experienced business speakers to use one or two index cards showing a few words, usually written in very large letter with varying colours, to act as a prompt and assist in the quick retrieval of information, if required.

Even the top, experienced business speakers rehearse, rehearse and rehearse again. Check your talk timings carefully, and know your material well when presenting at business meetings.

On the day of the event, a good business speaker will arrive at the business meetings venues very early to check everything is set up and ready. If you are using slides with PowerPoint or Keynote make sure they are loaded onto a computer and you understand the workings of other people's remote devices that are used to forward and reverse a slide during the speeches at business meetings.

To be effective as a business speaker don't use more than ten words per slide. Business meetings audiences quickly get bored with too many words and always prefer meaningful pictures and illustrations to emphasis a point.

Direct your business speaker presentation to the whole audience and yet try to make each and every business meetings delegate feel as if you are addressing them as individuals. The best way to do this is by randomly looking at different sections of an audience and establishing the briefest of eye contacts with as many business meetings delegates as possible.

Build rapport as a business speaker by sharing humorous observations and create audience participation by asking the odd open question e.g. 'Anyone been in a situation where they wished they had something like this new product to help them out of a tricky situation?'

Talk as if people in the business meetings audiences are your best friend of many years standing and they will quickly warm to you and make your job as the impressive business speaker that much easier.

Whatever you do as a business speaker don't read, especially from your slides. Remember notes are an aide-mémoire; nothing more, and the top, very best business speakers don't use them at all whilst presenting at business meetings.

Don't detract from your performance as a business speaker by trying too hard. If you have purposefully prepared, know your material, and rehearsed as I advised, you will appear that much more confidant to a grateful audience who has a thirst for knowledge.

Stop hiding behind a lectern. Stand near the front of the business meetings stage, with your legs slightly apart, displaying open arm gestures, and you will appear honest and genuine as a business speaker. (Check out short videos of quality business speakers on the Internet to better understand why I recommended this style of deportment - WATCH JOHN HERE).

If you intend to move away from the lectern make sure you are fitted with a radio mike and the lighting engineers are expecting you to move.

Vary the tone and speed of your delivery as a business speaker, and carefully watch the energy levels of your business meetings audiences, injecting humour, witty observations and the like to regain full audience attention if required.

Whatever you do, don't get too carried away when the business meetings audiences look as if they are really enjoying your skills and expert knowledge as a business speaker. When you get to the end of your allotted time say something along the lines of 'in conclusion' or 'finally' and know that, at best, you have no more than two minutes to stop and humbly accept the applause at business meetings.

For those of you not experienced in public speaking who have been asked to provide an entertaining, educational speech, here are some suggestions from John on how to give a humorous talk at a business meeting.

Many people believe that a business speaker who gives a humorous an educational, fun talk at a conferences, business meeting or the like is born funny. Nothing is further from the truth.

Some develop the skill as children as a method of dealing with school bullies, and the everyday anguish growing-up causes so many of us. Other involved in public speaking, began studying the subject after realising how powerful a tool it is in entertaining, inspiring and delighting a business meeting audience. Here are ten top tips:

1. Provide a humorous, motivating speech that will help solve other people's problems, and you build an instant rapport with them. For those involved in public speaking, here lies the basis on which giving educational, fun talks initially germinates, and then grow.

There is little difference in people. If, as a business meeting speaker you give a humorous, motivating speech where you make light of your own problems, an audience will empathise with you, mainly because they have very similar problems to yourself.

A business speaker that provides a humorous, motivating speech that helps business meetings delegates to come to terms with their own problems helps the audience in dealing with, what can be for them, a difficult dilemma they would, under normal circumstances, prefer not to think about.

That is the power granted to you when public speaking with educational, fun talks that inspire and energize others at business meetings.

2. For those doing the laughing at business meetings, and for that matter the business meeting speaker too, humour is a great escape from reality. The business speaker befriends an audience through his or her motivating speech, much as a circus clown does with children. Here lies another clue as to what humour is - not is not so much to do with the words used but with vocal expression, character exaggeration, comic timing, and pregnant pauses so full of meaning when delivered at business meetings.

3. The next time you listen to a favourite, humorous business meeting speaker giving a motivating speech note how they are not afraid to laugh at themselves. This is because humour is a universal human activity that allows the business speaker to become a philosophical spectator of his or her own life in relation to those they have around them. Also take note that the most popular topics presented at business meetings often revolve around friends (including newly formed quasi friends found in the audience), and family.

4. The props used by the circus clown to humour children are not so effective with adults at a business meeting. They don't see the clown as being funny. Scene setting, such as a public bar, is tolerated but it is the business meetings speaker's 'unique' personality that must shine through when providing an inspiring educational, fun talk. Have you ever thought about how many top comedians have similar acts? Non. Success in providing an educational, fun talk as a business meetings speaker is about being unique!

5. Public speaking at a business meetings is seriously hard work. Many that fail at giving an educational, fun talk do so because they don't work hard enough at it business meetings.

Giving a humorous, motivating speech as a business meeting speaker is no different to any other skill.   The 'fortunate few funny folk' having all the lucky breaks is nonsense. Luck plays little part in whether or not you are likely to succeed as a business speaker giving a motivating speech or presentation. It was Gary Player who said, "The more I practise the luckier I get" . This is as true for a business speaker as it is for a golfer.

6. At business meetings, educational, fun talks that motivate never stop growing. It is a baby conceived in the mind of the business meeting speaker, that is nurtured to adulthood, and often only dies with the demise of the creator.

The best humorous, business meeting speakers are constantly reworking their best material. They may be at the top of their profession but they never stop asking the question "How can I make this mediocre story better for delegates at business meetings?" Theirs is a quest for perfection that never comes.

Writing material for educational, fun talks at business meetings sometimes requires an ability to let go of 'the baby'. Those less experienced in public speaking often fear culling their best stories. Professional speakers know that an effective and humorous, motivating speech required an ability to prune content to facilitate the promotion of new growth.

Those experienced in public speaking at business meetings strive to be ever more professional in their talks. It is a lifelong apprenticeship that few have the resolve to complete.

7. What is, and what is not funny, fluctuates with the years, and is generally accepted by those involved in public speaking at business meetings as being a subjective test.

Quick-witted 'one-liners' are still in fashion, whereas jokes being delivered at business meetings are not. The "These three men went into a pub..." type stories are currently out of vogue and will create a chorus of cringes, as many would-be professional business speakers have found, unfortunately, too late to save their delicate feelings.

8. Producing material for a humorous talk at a business meeting takes practise and is primarily a personal preference thereby creating the uniqueness I described earlier. Here are a few suggestions as to how you can go about creating your own unique and inspiring educational, fun talks at business meetings.

When performing at business meetings I work on a simplistic definition of the psychology of humour as being 'the study of the human mind and prediction of behaviour'.

WATCH VIDEOS OF JOHN IN ACTION

To make a situation humorous in a motivating speech or presentation the business meetings audiences must first predict some outcome and then be humoured with a punch line that nudges them off the expected route and makes the situation funny.

The next time you watch or listen to a favourite speaker at a business meeting be much more analytical about what it is they are saying and try to work out why their presentation or humorous, motivating speech is so funny.

Let's take a favourite comedian of mine, Woody Allen. Here is a short extract from one of his routines and I would like you to analyse the construction of his story to assist you in becoming a becoming a better speaker at business meetings:

" When I was little boy, I wanted a dog desperately, and we had no money. I was a tiny kid, and my parents couldn't get me a dog, 'cause we just didn't have the money, so they got me, instead of a dog - they told me it was a dog - they got me an ant. And I didn't know any better, y'know, I thought it was a dog, I was a dumb kid. Called it 'Spot'. I trained it, y'know. Coming home late one night, Sheldon Finklestein tried to bully me. Spot was with me. And I said "Kill!", and Sheldon stepped on my dog."

Think about some of the tips I have already provided. Take the full stops is Woody's story as being the pauses I described. Does he build empathy by describing a situation that was similar to a problem you, or a member of the audience at a business meeting may once have had?

Is Woody Allen he making fun of his own problems?

To a business meetings audiences would he give the impression he was laughing at himself?

Is Woody a philosophical spectator of his own life in relation to those around him?

What relationship is he to the other characters in the story?

So hopefully you now better understand that true comedy found in educational, fun talks delivered at a business meetings is the practically enacted theory of the absurdities so often found in human relationships and is usually related to a 'twist' in the story. This is what funny is to business meetings audiences!

9. The 'twist' takes the story away from the norm (the predicted path), and makes it humorous. Woody's dog becomes an ant. As the story unfolds Woody creates a movie in your mind. You, and those at business meetings, are there with him as Finklestein tries to bully him and Spot is instructed to Kill!

The best motivating and humorous, business speakers have the ability to have 'fun' with literal meanings. It is said they see the funny side of everything. I agree they do, but only when they set the mind to the task of delivering fun talks at business meetings.

Professional entertaining, business speakers are performers during their presentation or talk. Meet them whilst doing the shopping with their spouse and kids and you will find they appear and sound no different to anyone else.

Yet something in that shopping centre may germinate the seed of an idea in the business speaker's mind that they will propagate for weeks to come and may eventually grow to maturity and bear fruit in business meetings presentations. For those involved in providing motivating, educational, fun talks, life is full of 'waiting to be discovered' humour that will later entertain and inspire the audience they find at a business meeting or event.

Take any situation and think of alternative meanings to make it humorous. Here's an example. "I was on my way to the shops and your dog went for me!" Think of alternate meaning to 'your dog went for me' i.e. the dog attempted to bite him, and reply "that's impressive; it never went to the shops for me before!" The listener at the business meeting is nudged from the predicted path making the story humorous.

10. My final top tip, for those involved in public speaking wishing to give inspiring, humorous talks or presentations at business meetings, is related to having the confidence to be funny.

Confidence is a state of mind. It is what you believe. Your beliefs are mostly a matter of faith and apply in more areas than just the spiritual. Believe in yourself and it will strengthen your ability to make people laugh with a educational and fun talk at a business meeting.

Have that faith and you can realise your full potential in public speaking at business meetings. Stand-up, be funny and afterwards think carefully about how you can make your humorous talk better the next time. Whatever you do - have fun doing it.

John Bell is a professional business meetings speaker. www.johnbellspeaker.com