Why do all public speaking trainers stress the need to tell stories in public presentations? Is it just because we were all C- students with liberal arts degrees who couldn’t get into Business School and we cower at the sight of any number higher than 10? (OK, that may be part of it)
The real reason we stress stories is that all of our in-the-field research shows that most people don’t buy into facts if they are inconsistent with the stories they believe. We all like to believe that we are rational human beings and that only other people are irrational, but the fact is we all have a tendency to believe facts that fit into our worldview.
It is easy to make fun of people who follow a cult leader who predicts the world is going to end on a certain date. But when that date passes and the world still exists, these followers only redouble their faith in their leader’s wisdom.
But this happens to a lesser extent every day in the business world. If your employees have the following story in their head “Our company doesn’t care about its employees, it only cares about short-term profits,” then no amount of 401K tinkering or Friday afternoons off in the summer will change that fundamental story in their heads.
On the other hand, if your customers believe that your company has a passion and commitment for the highest health and quality standards, even the occasional rat-found-in-the-soup won’t hurt your long-term image. Facts do matter. But facts are forgotten quickly, whereas stories linger in the memory.
Furthermore, facts that don’t jive with an audience member’s story about who you are and what you are all about are almost instantly discarded and forgotten. This is why any executive who truly wants to communicate a new set of ideas or numbers must develop a narrative story to put the facts together in a way that makes sense. Your stories must create reality but also be consistent with your audience members’ preconceived notions of reality.
Otherwise, your facts will fall flat.
If you are about to give an opening night performance in a one-man show on Broadway to three thousand people who have each paid $120 per ticket, it’s understandable that you have a few butterflies in your stomach. Expectations are high. Very High! Your audience expects you to be brilliant, flawless, entertaining and funny. Anything less than perfection will be cursed as a disaster and a rip-off.
Fortunately, most of us face lower expectations when we give presentations to people. The skilled speaker uses these lowered expectations to his or her advantage. Not because he or she uses this as an excuse to prepare poorly, but just to develop a proper mindset for every speaking occasion.
Last night I made my debut on Broadway. I was the male lead—the groom, in the international sensation “Cookin’.” Was I supremely confident and totally comfortable when I first entered the stage and uttered my first line?
Actually I was comfortable and confident.
Is this because I have total confidence in my acting abilities and a sense that long and hard rehearsals had paid off?
No, not at all. I hadn’t rehearsed and I have never been in any play, not even in high school.
In truth, I was plucked randomly out of the audience and brought up to the stage.
I had no lines to utter except for “tastes good!” after drinking the wedding soup.
So I don’t deserve any roses or even pats on the backs. Still, for many people, the idea of going up on stage in front of hundreds of strangers in the middle of a theatrical performance is a terrifying idea.
Why wasn’t I terrified? I’m certainly no braver than anyone else. In fact, I have an extremely low threshold for pain.
The real reason I wasn’t terrified is that I was able to gauge accurately the expectations the audience had for me. In this case, all I had to do was stand there, play a dorky guy, wear a silly hat, do as I was told, and let professional actors make fun of me. I realized that my being on stage wasn’t about me; it was just an opportunity for the actors to display their talents. This, I correctly deduced, would be a part well suited for my talents. It made sense for me to relax, so I did.
Too often, in the business world, we forget that our role is to make other people look good. We forget that it isn’t the end of the world if we look silly for a few moments. In fact, you can gain credibility with some people if you show you don’t mind looking silly occasionally.
Why was I picked out of hundreds to be on stage? Was it because I looked like the next Hamlet? Sadly, no. I was selected simply because I gave the actors direct eye contact when they came down my row and then I smiled and looked like I was having a good time, which I was. Everyone else was staring down at the floor thinking to themselves “please, God, don’t let them pick me.”
Of course, it doesn’t really matter if you ever go up on stage to participate in some silly theatrical show. But what does matter is that you can confidently “take the stage” at a moment’s notice, anytime you do have an opportunity to add a message or just a spark to any meeting or gathering you are attending.
So get ready to break a leg!
Just as a great Jazz artist who performs nightly can go into a riff for extended sets, so too can great speakers “riff” for lengthy periods of time.
Warning! This is not for the faint-hearted.
In general, I advocate that all speakers have a well-thought out beginning, middle, and end, complete with a handful of major points and well-developed stories to go with each point. But there are times when you can go without.
Note: this is not the same as “winging it.”
I always speak from notes (albeit in a way that no one sees my notes) and I have a set structure for my presentations or training sessions. But one day I was hosting an event for the National Speakers Association New York Chapter and I was asked to be the substitute speaker WITH ONLY FIVE MINUTES ADVANCE NOTICE.
Normally, that would be no problem. I could simply go into my hour presentation on how to communicate with the media. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work, because I had just given that presentation to the group only a couple of months earlier.
But I also have an hour-long presentation I do on how to give an effective presentation. But this was inappropriate because my audience was made up of professional speakers.
So what did I talk about? I spent the next hour talking about business tips and strategies I had learned over the last few years from fellow members of the speaker association. I literally didn’t have time to write an outline or structure a plan. I simply got up and talked.
The results? Feedback was as positive as any I have received for any presentation in my career.
Is this because I am a natural born, silver-tongued speaker? Not at all. Thought I never stuttered, I was an extremely shy child of few words.
My speech went well because I give speeches at least three times a week and I now have good speaking habits that have been acquired through constant repetition.
Here are the things that I did during my riff that will also work for you if you ever have to speak with absolutely no time to prepare.
1. I was comfortable and confident. Why did I start the speech in this condition? Because I speak so often in that state, I wasn’t able to get into any other physical or emotional state.
2. I used a speech grammar. Even though I was thinking of new material that I was going to say as I said it, I still used my “old” manner of speaking. That is, I would make one point, give an example and then tell a story about it using conversations with real people to make the point more memorable.
3. I interacted with my audience constantly. If I forgot what to say next, or I just wanted to see if I was making sense, I would ask questions of specific audience members. I encourage all of my trainees to plan to do this anytime they are speaking in front of relatively small audiences. But the truth is it doesn’t require a lot of planning, as long as you do it.
4. I moved in a normal manner. I constantly walked around the room, stopped, started, got closer to some audience members, and then the others. This created great variety for the audience and created the aura of great confidence.
5. I didn’t think on my feet. That’s right, I didn’t think of entirely new ideas to share with my audience. In stead, I simply recalled what I considered to be interesting conversations I had already had in the past with various members of this association and then I recounted the ones that I thought would be useful, interesting and relevant to the whole group. (Remember—thinking creatively in the spotlight is hard, remembering interesting conversations from the past is easy)
6. I actively encouraged questions throughout the presentation. Granted, you can’t do this if you are speaking to more than 500 people, but in a small group this is an excellent way to keep people engaged and involved. Plus, the questions helped me pad out my material to an hour (since I had no planned material at the start).
7. I was fearless during question time. Is this because I am omnipotent? Hardly. It’s just that I subscribe to the theory that all questions are easy: either I know the answer in which case I give it, or I don’t know they answer and I tell my audience “I don’t know” and then give my best guess on where they can find the answer. Novice speakers and even very good ones become noticeably nervous and embarrassed when asked questions they don’t know the answer to. You can’t control what you don’t know, but you can control how you feel about what you don’t know.
8. I acted like I was having a good time and I never apologized. In truth, I could have done a better job if I had had a day or two to prepare my speech, but I didn’t waste my audience’s time by reminding them of that fact. I did not articulate in any manner that I was annoyed or felt put upon by not having received advance notice. (in truth, I was happy because I am always looking for opportunities to speak and hone my craft) I tried to follow a rule that I give all of my clients which is: never talk about your speech, never apologize, never call attention to any inadequacy—simply give great interesting content.
9. I beat the audience’s expectations. The president of the organization mentioned before and after my speech that I was doing this with literally no notice, so the audience had low expectations. But note, I relied on someone else to set the low expectations; I didn’t try to do it myself.
10. I spoke with passion. I purposely haven’t bored you with any of the details of my speech because unless you are a professional speaker, they wouldn’t interest you. But I specifically only made points and told stories that I really cared about deeply and that I thought were critically important to my audience.
Of course I made some mistakes in this speech that I wouldn’t ordinarily make (I didn’t have a strong finish—and I added more stuff after I had already sat down—both medium-sized blunders). However, my passion for my subject helped overwhelm the mistakes I made. Passion for your subject will always make you more interesting and likeable to your audience because most speakers seem bored and are consequently boring to their audiences.
So there you have the secrets on how to give a great spontaneous speech. Please note that I am not advocating that you go out of your way to fail to prepare for speeches. But if you are called upon with literally no notice, there isn’t any reason why you can’t do a great job. Every one of the skills I used above are just that, skills. They aren’t rare genetic talents; they are simply habits that can be acquired by anyone who chooses to do so.
Nothing is better than when you can make a live audience break up with laughter while you are giving a speech. Of course, nothing is worse than attempting humor, everyone knows it, and you fail.
Many beginning and intermediate speakers feel like they have to have some humor in their speech, especially at the beginning, or their speech will be a failure.
Not so. You can be a great speaker, and never, ever get laughs.
If you are going to attempt humor, there are several guidelines you should follow.
- Don’t tell jokes. “Joke” telling is a tough skill to master. Something most
standup comics work on nightly for years before they master proper technique. If you tell a joke, don’t act like you know it is a joke—and make sure you have a personal connection to it.
- Never telegraph a joke or humorous anecdote. Don’t say, “I’d like to tell you
a humorous story about…” Simply tell the story. Your audience will decide whether or not it’s humorous. If you announce you are trying to tell something funny, you eliminate the element of surprise, which is crucial to much humor. Plus, you immediately increase your audience’s expectations. When you pronounce that a story is going to be funny, a certain percentage of your audience is going to think, “Well, I’ll be the judge of whether or not it’s funny.”
- Don’t start your speech with a funny story of joke. Many in your audience will
expect you to tell a joke at the beginning. It’s OK to plan to use a humorous story, but place it in the middle or near the end.
- Don’t tell well-known humorous stories or anecdotes. Everyone has heard the
one about the boat that thought the lighthouse was another boat. Don’t tell it again. All of your humor needs to seem to be a natural part of who you are and what you do. Otherwise, you will seem like a second-rate comic who just got kicked out of the Catskills.
- Don’t tell humor that isn’t specific to some point you are trying to make. If
you are telling a funny story just to be funny, the stakes become much higher. At a subconscious level, your audience is now comparing you to other professional comics like Jerry Seinfeld. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to compete with Jerry Seinfeld. That is not a battle you or I will win.
The best way to use humor in a speech is to simply tell a real life story where something funny happened to you. You know it is funny because when you relayed the incident to fiends and family, they laughed hard. Now, when you tell it in front of a large audience, you are likely to get a laugh. And if you don’t, it won’t seem like you flopped, because you were simply telling a story to make your point. You won’t seem like you were trying too hard, therefore it wasn’t a flop.
Go break a leg!
There is one thing I find in common with many of my media and presentation training clients: they like to talk about how they are going to give a speech or talk about what they are going to say in a media interview, instead of actually rehearsing the real thing.
THIS IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME.
The best way to prepare for a media interview or a speech is to actually rehearse it in an environment as close to the real thing as possible. My experience is that people can talk a good game about what they are going to say in a media interview, but when you stick a microphone in their face and ask them a question, something completely different comes out. Far better to spend some time—even if it’s only five minute—rehearsing a media interview and recording it. Then, when you play it back, the executive can see what was said. Bluster counts for nothing at this stage—the camera doesn’t like.
Similar is the situation with speaking. Executives are often great at talking about the interesting points they want to cover in a speech and insightful anecdotes they want to bring up. But then they get nervous in the actual speech and start reading bullet points of facts off of a wall.
It’s easy and relaxing to talk about what you are going to do at a later time.
It’s relatively hard to actual do it now. That’s why baseball players play real innings in practice; they don’t just run wind sprints.
There is a reason that Broadway actors don’t just talk about their characters and what they are going to say on opening night of the show. Actors do lots of full dress rehearsals. If you are giving a speech or media interview, you don’t have to memorize the way an actor does, but you do need to rehearse. It is the only way to get an accurate gage of your strengths, weaknesses, and what needs to be fine tuned before the real performance.
Rehearse, don’t just rehash.
Many business executives have a huge disconnect in their communication styles.
When they are speaking one-on-one with colleagues and friends, these executives are lively, interesting, conversational, and persuasive. But put these same dynamic executives in front of 12 business colleagues for a so-called “formal presentation” and these presenting executives turn into mind-numbingly boring zombies who can do nothing more than read bullet points off of a PowerPoint screen in sleep-inducing manner.
They know they can do better. They know they should do better. And yet, they just can’t seem to shake the idea that a presentation absolutely, positively has to involve standing up and reading fact after fact as quickly as possible. They know they aren’t communicating. They know they don’t listen to anyone who does the same to them. Still, old habits do, in fact, die hard.
How do you break this defeatist mindset?
I get my clients to focus exclusively on two words: Re-live events. If you can simply re-tell an event you experienced that is relevant to the message you are communicating, you can communicate to a business audience. Re-live the event by re-telling what your colleagues said to you at the moment, what you were feeling, where you were, what your problem was and what the solution was. If you can simply focus on accomplishing this, you can transform yourself from being dishwater dull to a toastmaster extraordinaire overnight.
So if you don’t want to obsess over new slides or the perfect hand gestures or humorous stories, that’s OK. Simply focus on re-telling events you have experienced that are relevant to your audience and you will do fine.
One sure sign of a nervous speaker is frozen hands
“TJ, I don’t know what to do with my hands!” cries my trainee in front of the video camera.
The answer, of course, is that you should do with your hands what you normally do with them when you speak—move them fluidly and constantly. Unfortunately, when people become nervous, they forget to do things that they normally do without even thinking.
The problem with failing to move your hands is that you now appear to be a nervous potted plant. Plus, your voice is more likely to become monotone.
Some of my trainees try and try during practice sessions, yet they claim they still can’t move their hands while speaking. In these extreme cases, I ask them to do the following exercise while being videotaped. Loudly state your ABCs, or simply spout gibberish for two minutes. The point is that I want sound coming out of your mouth but I don’t want you to think about what you are saying. Instead, I want you to focus exclusively on moving your hands, on gesturing in a forceful manner. You are priming the pump. Next, watch the video of yourself. Then watch it again with the sound off. Make mental notes on what it took to get your hands moving. Then do the same when you are giving a “real” speech. It may feel phony or even look contrived the first few seconds, but once you get going, you can return to your normal way of gesturing without having to think about it.
Then and only then will you appear to be natural and comfortable when speaking in front of people.
Your voice is your most precious speaking instrument. You must preserve and protect it at every opportunity.
Here are several steps to follow to conserve the strength and quality of your voice before a major speech or presentation:
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Don’t sing in the car while listening to the radio. This strains your voice.
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Don’t talk on the telephone.
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Don’t talk at all, except when necessary.
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Don’t smoke.
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Don’t allow yourself to be around second-hand smoke (stay out of smoky bars in
your hotel).
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Don’t ever scream!
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If you are swimming, be careful not to exhale through your mouth (this will
strain your vocal chords. Instead, exhale through your nose.
The voice box can be a fragile instrument. If you are nice to it, your voice will serve you well. If you abuse your voice, it will abandon you when you need it most.
When you get up to speak before a live audience, or if you are already standing and moving toward the front of the room to speak, all eyes are on you—and your posture. Your audience is instantly forming opinions about you, your confidence, your enthusiasm, and how interesting you will be. And a great deal of this is based on how you are standing.
Many of us are nervous or shy when we have just been introduced. So without realizing it, we shrink ourselves by looking down, curling our shoulders down, and compressing our bodies. At a subconscious level, we are thinking “if I make myself small enough, nobody will notice if I screw up.”
This is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
Instead, you want to stand as tall as possible, without appearing to be stiff. It may be helpful to think of it as though you were trying to get the top of your head to touch an imaginary ceiling that is three inches above you. (I’m not suggesting you get on your tip toes or that you grimace trying to contort your body upward) Think of yourself as actually growing another couple of inches, as you are walking up to speak (this will help your confidence too).
By holding yourself high, it is nearly impossible for your chest to cave inward in the manner that self-conscious people often do. If you are holding yourself as high as possible, your stomach muscles will be working to lengthen your body and you will benefit from a mild slimming effect. Also, if you are holding yourself as high and as tall as possible, it is also impossible to appear to be slouching, leaning or slumping in any sloppy fashion.
However, one word of caution, if you try to hold yourself high and you stop moving your neck, head, body or arms in a natural way, you will create an entirely counterproductive effect: you will seem like the Wizard of Oz’s “Tin Man” only dorkier.
So before and during your presentation, hold yourself high, but remain fluid and natural.
Nothing is more intellectually shallow than the Power of Positive Thinking, right? What could be more annoying than local TV anchors doing “happy talk”
during the middle of a newscast?
If you pride yourself in being a “straight shooter” or one who “tells it like it is” you are in for a real surprise when dealing with the media. Of course the news media will appreciate you if you trash your boss, your competitors, or especially yourself, but nobody else will. In fact, going negative is a sure-fire way to talk yourself out of friends, an employer and even a career.
If you are in the middle of an interview, regardless of the questions being asked, you must try to answer them in positive terms. I’m not advocating telling lies or even sugar coating, but how about dipping reality in a small vat of honey before distributing it to the world via the media?
The problem with answers that attempt to be “balanced” in the sense that they convey negative, neutral and positive statements is that only, and I mean ONLY the negative statements are likely to make it into the final story. For example, if you say, “It’s true, my family connections did help me get my first job 25 years ago, but ever since then, I’ve had to work twice as hard to prove that I am not just the son of a celebrity. In fact, I know that blah, blah, blah (more stuff about how hard you worked)”
The only quote that might end up in the story is this:
Walker conceded what his critics have always contended, “It’s true, my family connections did help me get my…job.”
End of quote.
Remember, a media interview is not a true conversation where you are rewarded for balance and objectivity. The “balance” in the story will come from the reporter getting quotes and perspectives from a variety of sources, some of whom may have negative views on you and what you do. So if you want to ensure balance about yourself, you must strive to be overwhelmingly positive in all of your comments to the news media.
Another great way of getting your message quoted is for you to quote someone or something that is opposing your or providing a contrast to your viewpoint.
“My opponent, our current governor, said ‘Elect me and I’ll create 1,000,000 new jobs.’ But what he didn’t tell us at the time is that he would create those jobs in China!”
That is an opposition quote. You are putting words into the mouth of someone else and then answering them. This sound bite element is often coupled with attacks, for obvious reasons.
At least once a month, I see some major celebrity who is going though an expensive divorce quoted this way:
“As Shakespeare once said, ‘the first thing we should do is kill all the lawyers.’”
It’s not original (and lawyers can make the case that the quote is taken out of context), but the quote is irresistible to most reporters.
Opposition quotes can often be complex and usually rely on some explicit or implicit attack; therefore they aren’t appropriate for most corporate executives.
But opposition quotes remain a favorite of reporters, so use them only if and when they are appropriate to your message.
As I have mentioned and written before, the hardest thing for a speaker to do well is to read a speech in such a way that the audience does not fall sound asleep. It is nearly impossible for the average executive to read a speech well.
Still, if you feel you absolutely must read a speech, here are some more tips:
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Read the speech over and over and over again silently.
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Re-format the words on your page so that you can see the words easily while
standing up (and the page is further away than it is normally when you are holding the paper directly in front of your face).
- Format each page such that paragraphs end on the same page they start on (no
sentences or thoughts continuing from one page to the next).
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Next, read out-loud the speech over and over and over again.
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Edit out any words from the final scrip that don’t come out of your mouth
easily and smoothly.
- Next, read one paragraph at a time (you want to start forming snapshots in
your mind of each paragraph.
- Don’t memorize each paragraph, but become so familiar with it, that the
shortest glance at its opening words brings an almost total recall of its contents to your mind.
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Figure out how you FEEL about each word.
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Next, read your speech in front of another person while trying to give that
person as much eye contact as possible.
- Next, have that person use a stop watch to determine how much of the time you
are looking down at your notes versus how much time you spend giving him or her direct eye contact.
- Continue rehearsing this speech with your friend until you are told that you
are giving eye contact at least 90% of the time and staring down at your speech no more than 10% of the time.
Reading a speech is not for the weak or lazy. The decision to read a speech is like choosing to run a marathon instead of 5K jog. Yes, it can be done, but only after a great deal of training and preparation.
The reality is that you don’t have to be a natural born comic or even the class clown to develop a reputation as a humorous speaker. It’s really just a function of hard work. If you speak on a similar subject on a regular basis, the trick is to occasionally say something that strikes you as amusing or funny. If it is funny to you, it might be funny to someone else. Then, if you get a laugh, make a note of it. If it works with one audience, it might work with others.
Once you have a funny observation, reuse it. It’s now much less risky saying the same thing to other audiences because you know some people like it. One note of caution, don’t try to say anything that sounds like a “joke.” You don’t want to be seen as a joke teller. Instead, try to cultivate a reputation as someone who can make interesting, amusing or fun observations and connections with different ideas and events going on in the world.
I often start my full day presentation training class by looking out at individuals with a stern expression and saying “the goal for today is that by the end of our training session you will walk and talk and sound just like me.” This usually gets a laugh. If it fails to get a laugh, I quickly say “I’m just kidding.” Then, I usually get a laugh. While I am getting them to have a little fun, I am able to reassure them that I don’t want to change their speaking styles, but just to bring out the best in their own natural style. So I am making a very important point to set off the training.
But sometimes, I don’t get any laugh at all. That’s OK; I’m still making my point. The key here is don’t panic. It doesn’t matter if your audience didn’t laugh. Remember, you weren’t hired to be a standup comic. The hard part comes with your next speech. You must remember to try your line again. Chances are it will work. I know my opening line usually works the next time, even if it didn’t work today.
Somewhere during the next 20 minutes of your presentation, you may get a chuckle or laugh—even though you didn’t plan it. Great, but write it down so that you can use it next time. Even though you didn’t write your humor in advance, doesn’t mean you can’t write it out after the fact and then reuse it.
This way, you can add humor to your presentations naturally, slowly and organically. You won’t seem like an old-style Catskills comedian, but you will seem sharp and fun.
When you are being interviewed by a reporter, it is always a good idea to ask, “Who else are you interviewing?”
Some reporters might not want to tell you, but most will. This is useful information, because it can help your figure out your potential positioning for the story. The more you know about who else is being interviewed, the sharper you can refine your message, thus increasing your chances of getting quoted on the message you desire.
Let’s say you are a CEO of an airline company and a reporter calls you wishing to discuss trends in your industry. If the reporter tells you that you he or she is also speaking to the head of the Federal Aviation Administration and Members of Congress in charge of regulating the airlines, you probably don’t need to spend a lot of time explaining what current or proposed laws are affecting your industry.
Instead, you would want a much narrower focus on exactly how the laws are affecting your company. If you were speaking to a general consumer publication and the reporter is using you as a sole source, you may want to position yourself as more of the industry expert, not as simply a spokesperson for your own company.
If you are a politician currently in office, it is nice to know if the reporter is also talking to your opponent (if you have one). If your opponent(s) are being interviewed, it is important not only that you spell out your position, but that you also explain how is it superior to your opponent’s position and why, exactly, your opponent’s view are wrong.
If you are the sole source, you can focus on a simpler and more positive message.
Some reporters will appreciate if you ask who else they are interviewing. The will sense that you are trying to be as helpful as possible and that you want to give them a unique perspective. Others won’t like you asking and won’t tell you.
My experience shows that there is nothing to lose because the ones that don’t like it won’t hold it against you, but the info you receive from reporters who do share what other sources they are speaking to can help you immensely.
So find out who your competition is for space in the story.
Let’s face it, we’ve all started to nod off while listening to a speaker, no matter how interesting the presentation. As a speaker, this can be disconcerting.
You may be tempted to walk over the offending sleeper, shake him by the labels and say, “wake up you knucklehead!” But that wouldn’t be polite.
I have found the most effective and yet subtle technique is to give the sleepy person longer eye contact than usual. Look at the person for an entire thought, plus a second or two. Of course you don’t want to look at this person to the exclusion of others in the room, but just enough to put a temporary spotlight on the drowsy one. That spotlight of your eyes will make the person just uncomfortable enough that sleep will seem less appealing.
If you feel the speaker in the room is looking right at you, it can make you slightly nervous. And if nervous, you aren’t going to want to sleep.
So look at the sleepy heads with your most direct eye contact possible, and you will see less of their eyelids and more of their heads nodding in agreement with your points.
It always pays to know your audience before you get up to speak. This applies not only to the subject matters of interest to them. You must take into consideration personal politics.
For example, if your boss is in the audience and he is incredibly petty, jealous, and worried about you outshining him, you must take this into account. In this case, keeping your job is more important than giving a good speech or even communicating any messages. There are times when you have to speak and your only goal is defensive: not getting sacked.
I hope this never happens to you, but it could. It that case, you should ignore all of the good advice I am sharing with you and then settle for giving a perfunctory speech, or worse, just reading a speech.
However, be warned. If you consistently give bad or mediocre speeches simply to avoid outshining your superiors, you will quickly develop a reputation for being a mediocrity. This can severely harm your long-term career prospects.
Good speakers always produce jealousy, even animosity, from lesser skilled people who are envious. The one thing that both Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan had in common is that their enemies accused them of being overly “slick” because of their superior speaking abilities. But both men had careers that far surpassed their critics’ careers.
If you know with absolute certainty that your boss is jealous of your speaking abilities, then, by all means, adjust your performance levels downward when you must. But then spend all of your time looking for a new boss who will actually support you doing your best in all endeavors. Unless you know that your boss is jealous and wants you to do poorly, you should always seek to give the very best presentation you possibly can. Major career advancements, promotions and being “discovered” often come down to giving one great speech in front of the right person.
So many business speakers have a difficult time concluding their presentations in a powerful way. Instead, they simply sputter to the end and then weakly and meekly say, “That’s it! Any questions?”
This is a great way to leave a bad taste in your audience’s mouth.
Conclusions don’t have to be heartwarming, poignant, or uplifting, but they do need to conclude, not simply die an untimely death. Too many speakers bore their audiences by quickly running through 123 facts, one after another, within a short time period. Then, after the 123rd fact is presented quickly, dryly and in a boring fashion, the speaker announces that the presentation is now over. This speaker is being selfish and thinking only about his needs to dump data, not about the needs of his audience.
Do the audience a favor by making it easier for them to retain the really important stuff. Remember, you audience does not have your full speech in front of them. Most likely, they weren’t transcribing your every word. Time f or a reality check: Your audience has already forgotten MOST of what you’ve said, and you haven’t even finished your speech yet. (When is the last time you remembered more than a handful of points from any speaker you listened to?)
You can help your audience by reinforcing your most important points. How do you do that? By simply repeating your 3-5 main points in the last couple of minutes of your speech. If your audience didn’t get it the first time, they might get it the last time.
So end your speech with a strong summary of key points and then ask audience members in a positive, upbeat manner to do whatever it is you want them to do.
Then stop. Keep your mouth shut. Smile. Your audience will know you have concluded without you having to say “That’sItAnyQuestions.”
What do you do if you have an incredibly large amount of data that you must present to an audience, but you are limited to a strict time amount of, say 10-30 minutes?
By far, the absolute worst mistake you could make is to do the following: cram every fact you can find into a bullet point and then on a PowerPoint and then race through that PowerPoint in front of your audience. You can guarantee that no one will remember anything you say if you try this technique (though you will be in good company, since this is what most bad-to-average presenters do).
If you goal is to actually communicate your ideas, facts and data, then you should use at least one or more of the following tactics.
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Email (or snail mail) reports, slides, fact sheets, graphs or even books to members of your audience IN ADVANCE of your presentation. That way, those who are highly interested can sink their teeth into your data, plus they will be more familiar with your concepts when you start to speak.
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Give out written fact sheets or other handouts during your speech, BUT AFTER you have already finished talking about that subject. If you hand out the fact sheets before you start the discussion on that topic, your audience members will ignore you and will focus on reading. By waiting until you have already covered a subject, audience members will be less tempted to begin reading while you speak.
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Pass out remaining materials AFTER your speech is over. This way, those who want lots of data will have it, those who don’t can throw it away. Nobody can accuse you of not covering all your bases.
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Email (or snail mail) your attendees dozens or even hundreds of pages of text or graphs that give ALL of the details surrounding the subject of your presentation. Again, those who are interested can hit “print” and have all your wisdom. Those who aren’t interested can hit delete.
When you are giving your actual spoken presentation, you must not yield to the temptation to try to cover lots and lots of data quickly, because this is not how the human brain processes spoken information. Instead, you should introduce a point, give a few facts about it, give an example, then tell a story and then provide a slide that illustrates your one key point. Then repeat this process.
So remember, it’s OK to dump data, but don’t do it in your speech and don’t do it in the PowerPoint slides that you are projecting to the whole room. Instead, dump your data using the four tactics above.
When a client comes to Media Training Worldwide for either media training or presentation training, we employ very one of these methods of communicating data.
Clients are given books to read in advance of the workshop, handouts during the session, handouts after the session and then more training tools and books sent afterwards. This truly is the best way to help people absorb large and medium bodies of knowledge.
A great speaker has certain unstated goals for himself or herself while giving every presentation. One of those goals should be “I must improve the lives of my audience.”
At first blush, this seems almost cheesy, as if it were the motto of a second-rate, self-help motivational guru. But let’s look a little deeper to see how this applies to speakers in every industry.
If you are a politician running for office, of course you may have to talk about credentials from your past or why you think your opponent isn’t qualified. But your first objective has got to be to convince voters that you can improve their lives during the next two, four or six years when it comes to their health, safety and prosperity. Voters become receptive to other issues only after you have convinced them that you are a plausible force to improve their lives.
CEOs must be able to explain to employees why, if they work harder, everyone will make money, to fund vacations, homes and college tuition.
Civic leaders must be able to explain how a new tax-funded stadium will improve the lives of all citizens, even those who don’t like and won’t attend professional sports competitions.
Managers of all stripes must explain to their workers how a particular new policy or request for new action will benefit the employees, even improving their lives, even if it is to a very small degree.
When your focus shifts from looking good or sounding intelligent to actually trying to improve the lives of your audience, people will respond quite favorably to you.
Bosses often tell their employees to speak “faster, faster, and faster” when the employee is giving a presentation to the boss. This causes problems for all involved. The employee giving the presentation thinks that the boss wants him or her to literally speak faster, so the employee starts racing through bullet point fact after bullet point fact on the PowerPoint slides. Any remaining interesting examples, anecdotes and tidbits are stripped away from the presentation.
With sweat on the brow, the employee finally finishes the speech and slinks away.
Here is what the boss is actually thinking when he tells the employee to speaker
faster: “My God, Dithers is amazingly boring. When is he going to tell me something I don’t already know? Doesn’t he know that I know how to read? Does he think I am stupid? What’s the significant of any of this? I might as well just read the handouts. This is torture. Would someone please put me out of my misery quickly? I can’t take this any longer.”
At that point, the boss now instructs the employee to proceed “faster” with the presentation because the boss figure it’s not going to get any better, so it might as well end quickly to minimize the pain. But it is crucial to note why the boss wants thing to go faster. It’s not because the employee is speaking to slowly or is giving too many interesting details or too many relevant stories.
The boss said, “Speak faster” because the employee was just too boring to listen to anymore and didn’t seem to be adding anything to numbers or words already on the printed out page.
The solution for the employee isn’t literally to go faster. The answer is to be more interesting, to add additional insights to the data, to explain relevance, and to engage the audience. So the next time your boss or anyone else instructs you to be faster during a presentation, you must realize that you need to be faster at getting to interesting content, not faster at sitting down.
