Five Ways to Improve Your Speaking Gigs
By Jonathan Kranz
When you’re working your way up the corporate leader, strong speaking skills are a way to distinguish yourself from your competition. If you’re a professional service provider, they’re a vital tool for attracting leads and building a favorable reputation.
Unfortunately, too many of us are unnecessarily intimidated by the prospect of speaking. I can’t lead you in a breathing exercise/extended meditation, but I can give you five tips that will help you shine at your next event.
1) Tell stories.
Stories have a built-in “beginning-middle-end” structure that make them easy to remember, plus an emotional hook that draws your audience into your message. Make an effort to illustrate each of your key points with an anecdote, preferably from your own experience, that’ll bring your point to life.
Jill Griffin, author of Customer Loyalty, is an absolute master of this technique. An excellent speaker, she deliberately constructs her presentations as a chain of anecdotes, each linked to the important points she wants to emphasize. Her newsletter, available from her home page, demonstrates this story-based approach in print.
2) Simplify your PowerPoint presentations.
Yes, I know: PowerPoint doesn’t kill people; people kill people. Yet misuse of this software has left too many numb audiences in its wake. If you remember nothing else from this newsletter, remember this: your PowerPoint file is NOT a script, crutch or even a presentation, in itself. When you speak, YOU should be the focus of attention. Ideally, each slide should simply serve to illustrate or reinforce your points, not carry the weight of your message.
If you haven’t done so already, read Tom Kennedy’s excellent article, Death By PowerPoint. Then subscribe to Brian Mullins’ terrific newsletter, Speak Visually.
3) Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
In the two weeks immediately preceding your scheduled appearance, set aside times to rehearse your speech/presentation. You don’t need an audience; it’s perfectly acceptable to speak out loud in an otherwise empty room. As you proceed through your presentation, you will inevitably find the trouble spots – awkward phrases, weak transitions, vague thoughts – that you can correct. More importantly, each practice session reinforces your grip on your material, leading to a confidence your real audience will immediately feel from you.
Here’s a great tip: Practice your speech aloud, but substitute each word with nonsense syllables such as “blah-blah-blah.” You should be able to communicate your intentions – what’s supposed to be funny, what’s sad, what’s crucial – simply by the way you manipulate rhythm, dynamics (loud versus soft) and the pitch of your voice. When you apply what you’ve learned to your real words, you’ll improve their impact exponentially.
4) Arrive early.
First, there’s the obvious practical reason – to make sure all the technology you’re using will actually work (and that you’ll have time to fix it). But early arrival gives you another, more subtle advantage: it gives you time to meet some of the members of your audience. Introduce yourself and engage them in conversations about your topic. In many instances, you can incorporate what you’ve learned into your presentation: “Earlier this evening, Nancy made a great point about data integrity that’s worth repeating…”
Your new friends can also become a lifeline. If you stumble, or if you feel a sudden loss of confidence, seek out their faces. Make eye contact. They’re on your side, and their rapt expressions of interest will give you the immediate boost in morale that you need.
5) Engage your audience.
You’re not on television; you’re sharing a real moment, in a real space, with your audience. Instead of talking at them, talk with them. If the venue is small enough, encourage them to submit questions throughout the presentation, rather than storing them for the end. Invite participation through your own questions; ask for a show of hands “if this has ever happened to you.” At a large event, where direct participation isn’t practical, you can use rhetorical devices to create the illusion of personal involvement: “Haven’t we all seen this before? Yes, I see quite a few nodding heads out there.”
In the end…
Chances are, your audience will remember the way you delivered your message long after they’ve forgotten most of your specific points. Rehearse, engage, tell stories. They’ll remember you as that charming expert well worth their time. And, perhaps, their money.
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Kranz Communications
(781) 620-1154
This article originally appeared in the Kranz On Copy newsletter. To subscribe, click here.
