Very few people actually think of themselves a as a crashing bore, but a very high percentage of people temporarily become huge bores when they give a speech.
And everyone always has a good reason.
“But it’s a lot of technical information I have to get out.”
“For legal reasons I have to say things in a straightforward way.”
“My boss wants me to stick to the script.”
“My audience is highly sophisticated and they really want me to drill deep into the details and all the numbers.”
“I’d like to show my personality, but the PowerPoint scripts have me handcuffed.”
What’s the one thing all of these excuses have in common? Your audience doesn’t buy any of them and will tune you out!
A lot of speakers waste hours and hours fretting over color schemes on their PowerPoint slides and what tie to wear. Those details have some minor importance, but they are almost entirely irrelevant if what you are trying to say is boring. There are thousands of little details that go into the style and substance of every speech that can have a minor impact and that, collectively, have a big impact. But there are just a handful of things that can have a deciding impact on your speech’s reception by your audience.
And one of those is whether or not your speech is boring. If you are boring, you can have great eye contact, a perfect suit and flawless slides—none of this will matter. No one will remember what you said.
If you actually say something interesting to the audience and you do it in an engaging manner, then you can break most other rules on saying “um,” using lousy PowerPoint slides and having your shirt tail sticking out—you will still be seen as a great speaker.
So it’s OK to make mistakes as a speaker, just make sure that being boring isn’t one of them.
