Here are 10 quick tips to help you add polish at the podium, enjoy your public speaking experience and influence your listeners.
- Begin with the end in mind. Start planning your presentation by asking and answering this question: What do I want my audience to remember when they leave my presentation?
- Use a mind-map or other right-brain organizational tool to organize your presentation. Landscape beats portrait when it comes to presentation planning. Think, “map, direction, flow” rather than lists, paragraphs and text.
- Know the “story” your presentation tells. Refrain from data-dumping. The information you present has a story behind it. Your audience will understand the details better if they understand the big picture first.
- Do not apologize or put yourself down publicly. Even if you didn’t prepare, feel insecure, or have forgotten your slide show.
- Look at one person at a time rather than scanning the room. People feel your intention to include them individually if you speak directly to them. If it’s a large crowd, mentally divide the audience into a tic-tac-toe grid and target an individual to look at from each section. One-to-one eye contact creates connection differently from scanning the crowd.
Read full article via humancapitalleague.com
Steve Sargent, president and CEO of GE Australia and New Zealand, runs through a four-point checklist–sometimes in just 30 seconds–before every organized communication event, from small meetings to large speeches.
Don’t even think about speaking in front of an audience without going through this checklist.
Continuing from last week’s tip, remember, there’s no substitute for practice. There’s no easy way to develop your delivery skills. It’s like any other skill – the more you do it – the better you become. And the most important goal of practicing is developing your own natural style. You don’t want to imitate someone else. You want to be the best presenter you can be.
Just as professional actors and comedians have their own styles, you need to have your own style too. For example, Robert DeNiro’s approach to acting is completely different from Dustin Hoffman’s, and Jay Leno has a different comic delivery style than David Letterman. You want to find what works for you. What gestures are you most comfortable using? What body position or stance feels most natural? What vocal tone should you use? These are some of the questions you have to ask yourself, and the only way to find the answers is to practice – and practice often. It’s really the only way to make it “perfect.”
By Tom Mucciolo, President, MediaNet, Inc.
Many business communicators lard up their speeches with jargon and weasel words. The result? They sound like bureaucratic stooges.
Your goal when dealing with the media is to communicate a message in the clearest and simplest manner possible, while at the same time building your reputation as a strong and forceful communicator. Strong and forceful are relative terms, so if you use all of the same buzzwords that everyone else does, you will always seem mediocre. Many businesspeople acquire their bad rhetorical habits at some point during their second year of business school or after having attended their third annual board of directors meeting.
Here are some of the worst offenders:
“Going forward . . .” What an utterly useless phrase. Use “in the future” instead. You wouldn’t tell your teenage son, “Going forward, please keep your room straight,” so why use it in a speech or interview? The sole purpose for using a phrase like “going forward” in a speech is to create the impression that you are saying something fancier than you actually are. So please, going forward, never use the phrase “going forward.”
“If you will.” People tack this phrase onto the back of a sentence as if to say, “Look at this most original and brilliant insight I have just come up with. It will require you to change your whole conception of the universe, if you will be so kind as to indulge me in this mind- thought experiment.” Pretentious drivel! Imagine a trap door, if you will, that will spring open and devour you if you ever use the phrase “if you will” in a public speech.
“As it were.” See above.
There is nothing wrong with using specialized language to convey complex concepts to sophisticated audiences, but that is not what many business communicators do. Instead, they use complex phrases to communicate simple concepts because they are under the delusion that this makes them sound more professional. The more simply and conversationally you can speak, regardless of the topic’s complexity, the more likely your audiences will understand, respect and appreciate you and your message.
TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide
For more information on media and presentation training please visit http://www.mediatrainingworldwide.com,
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 163 facts, one after another, within a short time period. Then, after the last 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 for 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.”
Of course, you want to give some thought to your appearance when you are preparing to give a presentation. There are two main factors to think about:
1. Is my appearance consistent with the message I am trying to convey?
2. Is there anything I’m wearing that could distract my audience from focusing on my message?
In terms of the first point, if you are a financial manager who’s attempting to get a major foundation to invest $100 million with you, then you obviously want to wear an extremely expensive and conservative suit, perhaps blue. You want to look established, not flashy, and as if you are already successful and don’t need their money. However, if you are an artist who is trying to convey your own brand of quirky creativity, then wearing a blue business suit would be the worst thing you could wear. What you wear needs to communicate who you are and what you are about as much as your words do.
When it comes to number two, you want to make sure that every single element of your appearance is in sync. If you are a businessperson asking people to invest money with you and you have a conservative suit, shirt, and shoes but a Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia tie on, then your audience members are likely to be confused and scratching their heads with distractions.
One important appearance rule: Look at yourself in a mirror before you start to present. Perform one last check to see if your hair is sticking up, if there is any lipstick smudged on or spinach stuck in your teeth. This can help avoid all sorts of appearance blunders.
The only other rule you should follow is to dress at the same level as—or one notch above—your audience members. If your audience is wearing sports jackets, you might want to wear a suit. But don’t dress two notches above. If, for example, you are addressing a tech audience in which everyone is wearing jeans and a T-shirt and you show up in a suit to present to them, they may look at you as though you are a total loser. Always factor in the image you want for yourself, the expectations the audience has for you, and the need to avoid distraction. Focus on those three things, and your appearance will be fine.
(BAD ADVICE)
Your Director of Communications: “Start by thanking your hosts or order of rank.”
Your Marketing Director: “Be sure to weave in our branding slogan in the first 30 seconds. Then tell people about all of our locations.”
Your director of new business: “Tell people about all of our locations and branches.”
Your mother, “Tell people how humbled you are by the nice introduction you received.”
Your inner voice: “Good morning. As you heard, my name is ___ and my title is ___. I’m happy to be here today. Thank you for that lovely introduction. Before I begin today, let me tell you about the incredibly boring history of my company starting back to its founding in 1923. Next, I’d like to tell you about all of the cities we are in (that you couldn’t possibly care about, because you aren’t in those cities.)
(GOOD ADVICE)
Listen to your audience: “Stop boring us to death! We don’t care if you are happy to be here; we don’t know you well enough to care yet. We already know your name and title; the person introducing you told us–we aren’t stupid!!! Stop talking about you, you, you. We don’t care about you at this stage of our relationship. Instead, tell us something interesting and relevant to us. We care about ourselves. If you address our needs, we’ll be more likely to pay attention to the rest of your speech!”
(BAD ADVICE)
Your Director of Communications: “Start by thanking your hosts or order of rank.”
Your Marketing Director: “Be sure to weave in our branding slogan in the first 30 seconds. Then tell people about all of our locations.”
Your director of new business: “Tell people about all of our locations and branches.”
Your mother, “Tell people how humbled you are by the nice introduction you received.”
Your inner voice: “Good morning. As you heard, my name is ___ and my title is ___. I’m happy to be here today. Thank you for that lovely introduction. Before I begin today, let me tell you about the incredibly boring history of my company starting back to its founding in 1923. Next, I’d like to tell you about all of the cities we are in (that you couldn’t possibly care about, because you aren’t in those cities.)
(GOOD ADVICE)
Listen to your audience: “Stop boring us to death! We don’t care if you are happy to be here; we don’t know you well enough to care yet. We already know your name and title; the person introducing you told us–we aren’t stupid!!! Stop talking about you, you, you. We don’t care about you at this stage of our relationship. Instead, tell us something interesting and relevant to us. We care about ourselves. If you address our needs, we’ll be more likely to pay attention to the rest of your speech!”
Never read a speech to your audience. Never read a speech. NEVER READ A SPEECH!
I say that all the time to my clients. Every presentation coach says this. Why?
Because 99.99999% of the world reads a speech in such a way that their voice becomes flat, monotone, lifeless and boring. The audience falls instantly to sleep.
However, there is a way to read a speech effectively, even though the method is rarely used. Ronald Reagan was a practitioner of this art form. (I’m not talking about when he or others use a TelePrompTer)
Here is the process. You reformat your speech on your page so that there is only one phrase per line (not a whole sentence, just one phrase). The phrase must be short enough that it fits on one line and does not have to continue onto the next line.
Next, you put a space between each line of text. Now comes the reading part, and this is the hard part. You must silently look down at your paper and read a line, then look up and give someone in your audience direct eye contact. Then and only then do you verbalize the line. You must say it in a conversational way, full of inflection. It doesn’t have to be memorized, because it is very short and you just read it a second ago. If you change a word here or there, it shouldn’t matter. The key is to say it so that you sound like you are just talking to one person in an informal way.
The next part is tricky for most people. You must pause, silently, while you glance back down at your notes to read the next line. Your audience will appreciate the pause; it gives them a chance to catch up and digest what you are saying. Your pauses will make you seem much more confident and relaxed.
The problem for most speakers is that it feels awkward and weird to pause while they are reading the next line. So what do they do? They figure, “I’ll kill two birds with one stone and read and talk at the same time.” The puts us back to the beginning: sounding flat, boring and monotone.
The key is to remember never to read when you are talking and to never talk when you are reading. If you can master the concept of doing one thing at a time, you can read a speech effectively to any audience.
What do you do if you are being interviewed on a complex subject and you’ve done your homework? You have narrowed down your messages to the top three. You have great sound bites for all of your messages points. But still, you have this nagging concern:
“What if this reporter screws up all the facts about my business?”
This is a legitimate concern. But if you spend all of your time trying to educating a reporter on every fact about what you do, you lose control of the interview and you increase the chances that you will be quoted on some point of minor interest to you. Or worse, you don’t get quoted at all because the sound bites you prepared got lost in the sea of facts you were spewing forth.
What’s the solution?
Providing simple fact sheets will do the trick. You don’t need a long and complicate press release. All you need is a simple sheet of paper (or email) with bullet-pointed facts about your subject matter. This will ensure the reporter has all of the facts at his or her disposal. The chances of the story about you being more accurate increase. Plus, you now don’t have to worry about using your valuable interview time focusing on large numbers of facts. Instead, you can focus on your main message and work on getting the quotes you want. The reporter can now work the facts from your fact sheet into the story without having to quote you directly.
Fact sheets are not appropriate in every situation; say a financial reporter is calling you for a quick reaction to a Fed rate increase. But on many occasions, such as a new product launch, an official political campaign announcement, or a crisis where you have advance warning, fact sheets can be a great tool for reporters and an asset for you. When preparing fact sheets, keep the following tips in mind:
- Don’t use complete sentences
- Leave plenty of white space
- Double space
- Make font easy to read
- Provide most important facts first
- Keep it simple
- But provide as many interesting and relevant facts as possible
Of all the tips I give my presentation training clients, the most important is to tell stories that flesh out your key message points. The concept of “telling stories” confuses many people. I often have clients tell me “I’m not a natural story teller.”
Or, “I agree with the idea of telling stories in principle, but it just doesn’t seem appropriate in our business situations, and besides, there is not enough time.”
Sadly, this shows a misunderstanding of what story telling is all about. Let’s clarify what stories are not:
- Stories don’t have to be funny
- They don’t have to be long (30 seconds is often enough)
- They don’t have to be about famous people or based in well-known locales
- They don’t have to be worthy of winning a Pulitzer Prize
It is important that your stories have a message, a resolution, a setting, one person, dialogue, another person, a problem, emotion, and passion.
Stories are not the most efficient way of communicating data, which is why most business communicators strip out all stories from their speeches. However, stories are the most efficient way of getting audience members to remember what you said.
If your goal is to get people to remember your key points, stories are essential. If you don’t care if people remember anything you say, then just present facts and bullet points in a straight forward manner.
But if you don’t care if people remember your points, why bother giving a presentation in the first place?
If you watched Obama’s speech last night, think of what you remember. I bet it was the stories he told…
If you speak long enough and often enough, you will occasionally bomb a speech. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes and make yourself even stronger for your next presentation.
Early in my career I had been booked to give a speech at a Manhattan political club. It was an election year and the political club’s party candidate was the current U.S. President running for reelection. I assumed–as it turns out erroneously–that members of a particular political party would want the incumbent of their own party to be re-elected.
Big mistake.
This being Manhattan, everything and everyone is a bit, shall we say, different (I can say this now because I have lived here for a decade). Members of this political club did not find the President from their own political party to be ideologically pure enough (this is something you will find in almost any organization based in New York City).
I gave a speech similar to many presentations I had given around the country. I started by making some jokes about members of the other party. These usual laugh-getters were met with stony faces. Next, I gave a detailed strategy on how club members could help their party’s nominee by calling talk radio shows, writing letters to the editor, appearing as guests on TV programs and other media strategies. This was met with looks of pure bewilderment.
With much grumbling in the audience, my speech finally stumbled to an ending.
“Great,” I thought, “Now the questions and answers can make up for lost time.”
Sure enough the first question comes.
“Young man, how long have you lived in Manhattan and what makes you think you could possible have anything intelligent to tell us?”
“Gulp.”
This was going to be a long night.
Fortunately (this was a relevant concept at that point), my audience had such contempt for me that they all quickly left the building.
As I was walking home in a snow storm on that April Fool’s day, I asked myself, “Where did I go wrong?”
Then I realized that I had made the classic blunder of assuming a one-size-fits-all for my speech. I hadn’t done enough homework to find out about the particular concerns of this audience. I had gotten to the event early enough to talk to members one-on-one to find out what they were thinking. I didn’t adjust quickly enough once I was making the speech. In, short, I made about every mistake a speaker you could make.
So was the lesson to avoid all public speaking in the future?
No.
The lesson was to find some more speaking gigs quickly and to wow my next set of audiences thoroughly. That’s why I did and that’s what you can do after your next bomb.
The key is, don’t think of your speech as a bomb, think of it merely as a rough draft for your next great speech.
David Letterman, isn’t just a talk show host, he is a huge brand. He and his show are also an integral part of the multi-billion dollar CBS brand. So when a crisis hits Letterman, there are repercussions that go far beyond mere personal embarrassment. So far, I give Letterman/CBS an A+ for its crisis management initiatives. Here are the rules they have followed that apply to any corporation caught in a crisis.
1. Release the information first. By breaking the news first, Letterman defined the whole issue in the most positive terms for his side. He didn’t wait to be surrounded by reporters camping out at his house.
2. Release the information to a favorable audience. Letterman revealed all to his studio audience. They already love him and provided a sympathetic ear. Business people should select a media outlet that is also most favorable to their viewpoint.
3. Don’t sugarcoat the worst news. Letterman directly stated that he has had affairs with women staffers. Whatever is the most damaging information, be sure it comes out from your lips first.
4. Apologize for errors. Letterman apologized and said he was wrong. This makes other critics look like they are piling on for attacking him later. If your company has caused injury or inconvenience to others, apologize quickly and sincerely and you will take much of the venom out of the fangs of your enemies.
5. Change the topic. Letterman got everyone to focus on the Extortionist and off of the hanky panky. Whatever your crisis, get people to focus on your solutions, your pro-active steps—anything else!
Many people make the mistake of thinking “wow, it’s only a conference call. I don’t have to prepare or rehearse because it’s no big deal.” Wrong!
It can be even more challenging to present your ideas on a conference call, because your audience is distracted by so many things beyond your control. You must be more interesting and engaging on a conference call than in a face-to-face talk.
For starters, have something interesting to say right from the beginning. Next, don’t simply dump data. You can send people an email if all you have is data to dump.
Whatever you do, don’t read documents on a conference call. If your lawyers insist on legal gobbledygook being read, then make them read it. There is no sense in ruining your reputation just so a lawyer can feel powerful.
Don’t forget that when you talk on a conference call, you still must fulfill the basic objectives of any presentation. You must have a clear and simple water cooler message and you must accomplish four things with your audience: 1. Speak so that people understand you. 2. Remember your message. 3. Take the actions that you request, and 4. Tell other people what you said.
While you are on the conference call, give it you total focus. That means get off the internet, turn off your TV, and stop typing letters. Instead, give the call your 100 percent focus. Really listen to what other participants or questioners have to say. Engage.
If you give the call your best efforts than you will get the most back from listeners on the other end of the phone.
More Insights from TJ Walker & Jess Todtfeld
http://www.tjwalker.com and http://www.SpeakingInsider.com
Most speakers have heard that that they should spell out what benefits they can deliver to their audience members, yet most speakers never do this. Why?
Because most speakers are selfish. They are thinking about what their message is, what their department has accomplished in the last quarter, what goals they have. Average and mediocre speakers are thinking from the perspective of me, me, me!
Bad speakers think the facts speak for themselves and that the audience is “smart” therefore the audience can deduce what the benefits are if the speaker simply lays out all of the facts.
This is total nonsense.
Audiences can do one thing at a time. I don’t care if everyone in the room has a PhD from MIT, they can only do one thing. They can either listen to your presentation or they can analysis and synthesize. They can’t do all of these things at once. Don’t make your audience work hard-spell out for them in explicit detail what benefits you bring to them.
The skilled speaker realizes that an audience never perceives a speaker to be condescending or “talking down” to an audience, simply for explaining in explicit detail how individual members of the audience can benefit from the message of the presentation. On the contrary, audiences appreciate it when you show concern for their needs and desire.
Many speakers start to explain benefits, but only in a highly abstract manner. They talked about “optimized revenue potential” instead of “Sally that means you could make an additional $35,000 this year.” The first is an abstract fact, the second is a benefit.
The trick for any skilled speaker is how to personalize data in such a way that audience members can relate to it and remember it. By pointing out what benefits that your audience members will receive if they buy in to your premises, you will make your message have its ultimate impact.
So when preparing your speech, be sure to pretend you are an audience member for one moment and ask yourself, “How can this message personally benefit me?” Then come up with a darn good answer.
Many executives and politicians spend so much time trying to figure out what reporters want in the form of answers to questions that the news makers lose sight of the primary goal: your message should be a reflection of good things you want to communicate about yourself and your organization. Of course you have to take into consideration what is of interest to the media and to your audiences, but don’t forget the most important constituency in the messaging process: yourself.
Whether you are facing a crisis in the media or the local society reporter wanting to write a puff piece on you, you should always be on the offensive, advancing positive things about yourself. Once you get in a reactive mode, you are stuck in a defensive mode. In this capacity you are forever trying to avoid getting hurt or to minimize pain.
Why be so pessimistic? No matter how cynical the reporter is or how negative the story may be, you always have a chance at getting some of your positive message points out. But not if you don’t even try.
Remember, if you know the media want to hear a certain message from you and your audience wants to hear a certain message from you, don’t give it to them unless it is also a message that you absolutely want communicated. If your message doesn’t appeal to all three constituencies, it is a failed message point, so scratch it.
“Don’t make the almost universal mistake of trying to cover too much ground in a brief talk.”
“Above all else, don’t make your talk abstract.”
“While preparing, study your audience. Think of their wants, their wishes.”
“Don’t read, and don’t attempt to memorize your talk word for word.”
“The ideal thing would be not only to see and hear the thing to be remembered, but to touch it, and smell it and taste it – above all else, we are visual minded.”
“Stop leaning against the table. Stand tall. Don’t rock back and forth.”
“Use emphatic gestures.”
“Use conversational tones.”
“Love you audience.”
“Pause before and after important ideas.”
After you have risen to address your audience, do not be in a hurry to begin. That is the hallmark of the amateur. Take a deep breath. Look over your audience for a moment; and, if there is a noise or disturbance, pause until it quiets down.
Where do they all of these quotes come from? They all contain nuggets of sound advice. In fact, I tell my trainees these things all the time. Plus, I use variations of these in my own books and training DVDs. But every one of these quotes came from Dale Carnegie’s 1926 book “Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business.”
Every new generation thinks it is “modern” and “special.” But the reality is that many of us are boring and ineffective speakers at the beginning of the 21st Century and we would have been just as boring at the beginning of the 20th Century. Many principles of good speaking are timeless. If you want to get a better since of how timeless, I’d urge you to pick up an old, dusty copy of Dale Carnegie’s “Public Speaking.”
TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide
More Insights from TJ Walker & Jess Todtfeld
http://www.tjwalker.com and http://www.SpeakingInsider.com
Never give audience members a copy of the script of your speech in advance of your presentation for the following reasons:
1. They might read it instead of listening to you.
2. They might use the script as a reason to leave your presentation before you finish – or even before you start.
3. You have destroyed your ability to surprise or seem spontaneous if everything is written out for people in advance.
4. If you deviate from the script, some people will think you are making a mistake. (if they don’t have the script, no one will know you have made a change)
5. If you deviate from the script, some people will be highly disappoint that you are not meeting their expectations. (if you don’t give them a script in advance, they won’t have specific expectations)
6. If you have given out a script in advance, you may be more tempted to actually read the script in front of people and that is boring!
The only time to give out the text of a speech in advance is when you are required to by your boss, the law or some governing body that can deny you the right to speak otherwise.
Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.
Is drawing on white boards and charts too old fashion for modern audiences?
Director of marketing: “Of course it’s too old fashion. You should always use video or slick PowerPoint graphics.”
Director of Public Affairs: “We want to project ourselves as modern members of the 21st century, so let’s not be caught using old technology.”
You: “I don’t want to draw or diagram in front of people. What if I make a mistake? All eyes will be on me. If I do the PowerPoint slides in advance I can spend hours on them and add many layers of useful date to each slide.”
Your Audience: “Actually, it’s quite refreshing to see someone draw or diagram for us live and in the moment. It’s, frankly, much easier to follow because a speaker cannot draw 8 different color-coded lines at once. As audience members we feel we can see and experience exactly what the speaker is talking about us. Also, it slows the speaker down and gets the speaker away from doing a huge data dump. By drawing items, it forces the speaker to get away from meaningless abstractions. We don’t care if the drawing or writing is less than great, as long as we can understand the concept and see the drawng, we are OK with it.”
When most people get an interview, the following goes through their heads:
-I’m just happy to get this interview.
-I’ll be happy to get THROUGH this interview.
-I’m most concerned with the questions.
-I’ll be happy if I don’t embarrass myself.
-Maybe this interview will help me, my company, or product. I’ll worry about that later.
-I guess this will just be good to have on my web site.
Don’t be like the masses. Successful people leverage media interviews.
As for the definitions of leverage, in the physical sense, leverage is an assisted advantage. As a verb, to leverage means to gain an advantage through the use of a tool. You are doing both with interviews. You have an advantage because you were just given a platform to speak to thousands or millions of people. If you were given a platform like that, would you just throw it away? If I told you that I’d give you a free 30 second ad on cable news, I bet you’d spend weeks trying to figure out how to make something great for that ad. Any time you are featured in the media, it is a potential ad for you or your company. I’m not saying you should sound like an ad, but understanding this concept is half the battle.
As a verb, we said that leverage means to gain a advantage through the use of a tool.
Can you guess the tool here?
The MEDIA!!!
