Art Of Great Speaking

You’ve practiced your script; you know your material; you’re excited about your upcoming speaking engagement; all is right with the world; but your audience’s reaction to you is less than stellar. What went wrong? Why didn’t they enjoy your presentation?

There are many reasons why your speech or presentation may not affect your audience the way you expected but for purposes of brevity I will discuss this idea primarily from the point of view that indeed you did a very good job: they could hear you; you spoke with enthusiasm; your points were valid; your presentation was well-timed. Had you done this for a public speaking course, you would have received an A.

So what was missing with your audience? The answer is your audience. Every audience is different and you can never prejudge how they will accept you as the speaker. Were you to give a great performance at a Mark Victor Hansen Mega Conference, your audience would be incredibly receptive. Give the same performance to a group of CPAs or realtors as the final speaker at a 3-day conference and your audience could very well be unenthusiastic.

This is where timing is so very important in your placement as a speaker. If you are to speak at noon and your group is scheduled for a 1:00 pm lunch or you are to speak at 5:00 pm and the group is scheduled for a 6:00 pm dinner, you will not be as well-received as you would have had you been placed in a better spot on the roster. While people may love to hear a great speaker, the growl of the stomach often precludes one’s ability to pay close attention.

Without a doubt, the timing of your presentation can affect your audience but so too can the type of audience to whom you are addressing. Mixed crowds will be different than an all-male group or an all-female group. Addressing a Lions or Rotary Club at their monthly meeting will be different than speaking to those same people were you holding a presentation at their place of business. People who come to hear you of their own accord can receive you differently than those people who are ‘volunteered’ to listen to you because of their jobs or organizations to which they are affiliated.

While I have been giving presentations for most of my adult life, it was in my early public speaking career that I discovered how your audience can influence your delivery. When I speak on voice training, I always discuss the role of the diaphragm in breathing with the comment (not meant to be funny) that, “We all have a diaphragm, we just don’t use it.” In those early years saying those words, I had never gotten a noticeable reaction from my audiences, nor did I expect one; however, when I said those exact same words to a large group of teachers, they thought it was hysterical and laughed for some time. [From my experience I have found that teachers are one of the best audiences to have. They enjoy listening because they enjoy learning.]

Occasionally I have given a presentation and not been pleased with my delivery and yet my audience loved it; I have sometimes given a presentation in which I felt my delivery was quite strong and yet my audience did not respond as well. One time I was scheduled to speak at 8:00 pm directly following a 6:00 pm return session with one of my former workshop groups. I didn’t know how I was going to pull it off because I was very, very tired and admittedly, not very excited to give that presentation. I remember this audience vividly however. They were so receptive, laughing throughout my presentation, that their enthusiasm was contagious. There is no doubt that their reception of me gave me the energy I needed to deliver. It was one of the best presentations I have ever given and undoubtedly one of the funniest.

Audiences can be a blessing in disguise or a bit of a nightmare. The best advice I can give you is to be prepared for anything because you never know what will happen when you get up to speak. That is the adventure of public speaking; and, personally, I find that to be one of the joys of addressing an audience.

The Voice Lady Nancy Daniels is a voice specialist and president of Voice Dynamic. Offering corporate and 2-day workshops throughout the US and Canada, Daniels launched Voicing It! in April of 2006, the only video training course on voice improvement. For more information go to: http://www.voicedynamic.com

Denise had just won a big promotion. She was not someone who typically sought the limelight or ask for help. So Denise spent the first weeks working alone, avoiding presentations and even speaking up in meetings (unless directly spoken to). When asked to make a PowerPoint presentation, she panicked.

A crisis is not a good time to learn how to make an effective presentation. Denise quickly put together 20 slides, prepared some points, and practiced answering potential questions. After pulling an all-nighter Denise delivered an adequate speech while learning an invaluable lesson: You don’t have to be a perfect speaker to be successful, but you must be prepared.

This is the true distinction between success and failure in public speaking. To ensure that lack of preparation won’t be your downfall when you take to the podium, consider these most common mistakes budding public speakers often make.

Mistake #1: Underestimating the importance of public speaking to your career

A retail executive with a strong financial background and track record was promoted to CFO. In the first weeks, she uncovered problems in her operation and quietly went to work, never seeking the limelight nor help. While that approach may have worked in the past, it was about to backfire. Senior leaders expected to help each other by sharing information. Emails leaked out about her problematic situation and the senior team confronted her. The CEO scheduled a meeting and she was asked to make a PowerPoint presentation.

The new executive not only had to put together her slides and prepare her talk; she knew she had to get ready to face some tough questions. Fortunately she pulled a lot of people in to help. She practiced, prepared and delivered a decent presentation.

If you want to lead the company, you should never underestimate the importance of public speaking. You will be judged by the way you handle the hot seat. Judgment Day isn’t six months before they decide to make you CEO. Judgment days are all along the way. You have to be ready long before you have to be ready.

Mistake 2: “Winging” important speeches

Eric, a vice-president regarded as the candidate to succeed the CEO, was asked to deliver a presentation to the company’s leadership group. Buried under several other projects, Eric figured he could probably wing it. Bad idea!

What made matters worse was that the same day Eric was to speak, a colleague named Fred gave a great presentation. Fred had done his homework, organizing his thinking, and practicing the night before. In contrast to Eric, Fred appeared cool, well organized, polished and he answered questions with ease.

Even if you feel generally comfortable in front of an audience, winging your presentation will usually prove to be a huge mistake. Your talk must be organized and your points delivered crisply. Otherwise, the effect could be less than your audience expects, harming your competent, professional image.

Mistake 3: Leaving it all to a speechwriter

If you can hire a good speechwriter, you should. Every speaker can use someone to sketch out ideas, brainstorm and find ways to improve on what you have to say. But don’t let your speechwriter do it all.

In the end, you must be comfortable and familiar with what you’re going to say. Your speechwriter won’t be behind that podium when the big day comes… you will. Let your speechwriter give you some help but the presentation will be yours, so make it yours.

Mistake 4: Not answering the question

Be ready and willing to honestly answer the toughest questions head on. If you don’t know the answer, say so: “I’m sorry but I just do not know” or “I’ll have to look into that.” It may not be the ideal spot to be in, but getting caught later in a lie is much worse for your reputation. Your audience will appreciate the truth.

Mistake 5: Forgetting your audience

Those who attend your presentation are often leaving piles of work on their desks to come and hear you talk. You cannot give them that time back, you can only thank them for giving it to you and then do your best to make it worth their while.

Whether speaking to executive officers, your staff, or even job candidates, think first about who they are and what they want to know, even before you write down the opening words of your speech. If you’re not sure, interview a handful of people who will be in your audience. Find out what they need to learn. Remember your audience, and chances are they’ll remember you.

Mistake 6: Blowing the easy questions

In their frenzy to study up on the difficult questions, many speakers end up unprepared for the slam-dunk ones. Yet if they fumble these, they’ll look as unprepared as ever. Rather than seeming knowledgeable, they’ll convey the reverse. “How can he not know THAT?!” So don’t forget the potential softball questions as well as the hard.

Mistake 7: Not knowing when to fold ‘em

Ever had to sit through a wedding toast that just kept going and going and going? That’s because time flies when you are in the spotlight and what seems like only a few moments to a novice speaker is actually many minutes.

To be sure you don’t make this mistake, time your speech by standing up as you mock-deliver it. Do not time it by sitting and reading it because this takes less time. Speak out loud.

And be ready to improvise by tuning into your crowd. Sometimes things are running behind schedule and an audience may be getting restless for a break, signaling you to cut your talk even shorter. Lincoln’s Gettysburg address was less than two minutes long. Remember, few are ever criticized for giving a speech that was too brief.

Mistake 8: Not having fun

Humor helps connect you to your audience. You don’t have to be David Letterman. Just try to have a little fun. Tell a quick story that’s amusing, make a light-hearted remark about the commute in or the weather. Humor will warm up your audience.

Everyone makes mistakes in public speaking. The key is to identify a lesson learned and try to correct it your next time out. If these eight common mistakes help you better avoid such gaffes, all the better. Keep speaking, keep practicing, keep preparing and before long, mistakes like these will be a thing of the past.

Suzanne Bates is an award-winning television news anchor, reporter and president of Bates Communication, a presentation skills consulting firm that helps business leaders and executives project an authentic voice of leadership, and get a competitive edge in business. This article is adapted from Speak Like a CEO: Secrets for Commanding Attention and Getting Results (McGraw-Hill) which has been translated into Russian and Chinese. Suza

Imagine yourself as an audience member. You’ve paid big money to learn the secrets of your favorite guru. You’ve read the guru’s books, subscribed to his newsletter, and you read his blog daily. Now you have the opportunity to learn from him in person at his highly-publicized weekend seminar.

The guru comes onto the stage and starts speaking. You listen expectantly, anticipating an educational and entertaining presentation. Instead, you find yourself feeling more and more uncomfortable, as the guru seems to talk endlessly about his personal success, all the famous people he knows (many of whom you’ve never heard of), and how you’ll never be successful unless you do x, y, and z. At the end of the seminar you leave, feeling deflated, disappointed and resentful.

Now put yourself back in the driver’s seat. As the speaker, it’s your job to learn about your audience, discover their needs and wants, and figure out how best to serve those needs. How can you serve your audience if you’re badgering and intimidating them? Some speakers aren’t aware of these behaviors or the negative way they’re being perceived, but by following the tips below, you can ensure that your audience will never walk away feeling defeated.

Pointer 1: Name-dropping makes you look insecure

You’ve already been invited to speak. The organizers are aware of your credentials. The audience has already paid to attend your presentation. There’s no need to keep trying to impress them with your long list of credentials and famous cohorts.

One result of dropping names of famous clients or colleagues is that audience members who haven’t heard of these people are immediately at a disadvantage. They become distracted, wondering who you’re talking about and whether it’s important to know. They don’t want to raise their hands to ask for clarification, because they’re insecure, too, and they fear looking stupid. They feel left out, and that’s the first step to disconnecting from you and your message.

If you must name names, clarify for your audience who you’re talking about. Mention the title of the book she wrote, the TV show he starred in, the restaurants he owns. And only name names if it furthers the objective of your presentation. Your audience wants to be included; help them feel like they’re “in the loop.”

Pointer 2: Badgering gets old

You want participation from the audience. You want to ask them questions and get answers. You want them to laugh and have a good time. Sometimes you push too hard, and this can cause some audience members to become sullen and defiant, resisting your authoritative manner. Do you want them working with you or against you?

When you ask a question of the audience, permit them to answer if they want to. Don’t badger them by saying, “Right? Right?” or “Yes or no? Yes or no?” until they respond. Instead of asking yes or no questions, ask open-ended questions that allow them to share their own experiences and knowledge.

Offer discussion questions and ask them to share with a neighbor, or hand out cards with questions or ideas on them and ask willing participants to share. Instead of ordering them to “write this down,” let them decide what notes they want to take.

Intimidating the audience into responding only makes them feel small and embarrassed, like chastised children. Treat them like the wise, experienced adults they are.

Pointer 3: Connection is more important than perfection

Speakers often fear making mistakes, forgetting their words or being judged incompetent by the audience. In order to cover all their bases, they rehearse and practice until their words and mannerisms are completely memorized, down to every gesture and pause. How does the audience respond to this speaker? With glazed eyes and detachment. It’s hard to relate to a robot.

The audience wants to connect with, relate to, and be emotionally involved with the speaker. An overly slick and polished exterior creates an emotional barrier between you and the audience, and interferes with the absorption of your message.

How do you practice your presentation enough that you’re comfortable, but not mechanical? Always make sure your opening and closing are strong and focused and that you are comfortable with the first and last five minutes of your talk.

Put the body of your presentation into simple notes or bullet format so that you can practice your main points but not have them so memorized that you’ll be thrown off if someone asks a question in the middle of it. This is the part where you’re going to want to interact with the audience, and that interaction can sometimes change the direction or tone of the presentation if you’re flexible and willing to go where the audience wants to go.

Know your topic inside out and prepare for questions by anticipating what the audience might want to know. Beyond that, you can’t plan for all circumstances, so allow yourself to be human. If you do make a mistake or forget your words briefly, have a chuckle at yourself and move on. This will win you more points with the audience than having a perfectly memorized speech, guaranteed.

Constantly read your audience throughout the presentation. Stay connected with them and be aware of how they’re responding to you. Treat them with respect, kindness and good humor, and instead of feeling defeated at the end of your talk, they’ll feel like winners.

Lisa Braithwaite works with individuals to uncover their challenges and build their strengths in presenting themselves confidently as speakers. Find your voice with public speaking coaching! Sign up for my newsletter and find out about my e-course and free consultation by visiting http://www.coachlisab.com.

One of the secrets for becoming a dynamic public speaker is to make eye contact with your audience. While there are some courses on presentation skills or public speaking that teach you to stare at an object on the wall in order to eliminate your nervousness, I couldn’t disagree more.

Forget trying to eliminate your nervousness. However, nervousness affects you – be it that extra spurt of adrenaline (also known as the rush), your heart beating faster, those knots in your stomach – let it work for you, not against you. All great performers, great actors, great athletes, and great public speakers experience nervousness. If you think they don’t, then you are wrong. Their nervousness is one of the characteristics which helps make them great. The answer lies in learning how to control the nervousness, not eliminate it.

I teach what I refer to as the 5 characteristics of a dynamic public speaker and each one of those characteristics helps you control your nervousness as well. Making eye contact with your audience is one of those characteristics and it is invaluable because once you are able to look into the eyes of your listeners, you are then taking the first step in being conversational with your audience. Many people are under the mistaken belief that when they stand at the lectern, on the podium or at the boardroom table, they should be someone other than who they are. That is wrong. The person you are in your office or in your home, in a social situation or a business setting, is the person that should be giving that speech or that presentation. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. First and foremost, be yourself

What you will also discover when you make eye contact is that you have smilers. Every audience has its smilers. So the next step is to focus on those smilers: they make you feel good, they bolster your confidence. And, because they are smiling, you will think they are in agreement with you, again, bolstering your confidence, another means for you to take control of that nervousness. The smilers will be located throughout your audience so when you zero in on the person smiling on your left for example, everyone in that area will think you are looking them.

Remember too, that if you will have people on your left, in the center, and to your right. Do not focus just on one section. Move your gaze from the left to the center and to the right. Recently I heard a speaker who did move his head from one side to the other; however, his gaze was so very brief that I realized he wasn’t making eye contact with anyone. It was quite disconcerting because I knew that he was just spitting out words – he was not communicating.

Next you must prepare for your sleepers. Just as every audience has its smilers, so too, every audience has a sleeper or two. Sleepers may tell you that they listen with their eyes closed. That is fine. But truly you may have someone sound asleep. My very first paid speaking engagement was to a group of professional secretaries. A woman in the front row, a retired secretary who probably got out once a month for this meeting, fell soundly asleep within the first 10 minutes of my presentation. I was aghast, thinking I must have been terribly boring. (She was snoring to boot!) The moment I finished, however, a woman in the back of the room stood and asked me if I would agree to be their guest speaker at their yearly conference. That’s when I realized an occasional sleeper is okay! If, on the other hand, your entire audience is asleep, I suggest you change jobs!

Public speaking is a marvelous means of communicating with others. You may be giving a persuasive presentation, you may be talking about a harrowing experience, you may be there as the after-dinner entertainment. Whatever your reason to stand and speak in front of others, remember that when you learn to talk TO your audience and not AT them, you are then acknowledging that audience. By acknowledging them, you become more personal, more intimate, treating them just as if you were having a conversation in your living room. That is one of the secrets to become a dynamic public speaker.

Nancy Daniels is a voice specialist, public speaking expert, and president of Voice Dynamic. Working privately and corporately, she launched Voicing It! in April of 2006, the first video training course on voice improvement. You can watch a clip from her DVD on her website, ‘before’ & ‘after’ takes of her clients, and a 16-minute video in which Nancy describes what voice training can do for you at http://www.voicedynamic.com/products.htm

If you want to improve your public speaking skills, you must avoid the top speaking mistakes that cause audiences to consistently complain. These are the top 4 audience complaints when listening to a speaker or presenter:

1. Boring, Monotone Voice

Nothing is worse than being trapped in your seat listening to a monotone speaker drone on and on. Even if you have great information to share with your audience, they will tune you out if you have a boring voice.

How do you combat a boring voice? The best way to avoid a monotone voice is to be passionate about your topic. Passionate presenters are never monotone or boring. You should also experiment with changing your volume and your pitch while you speak. Throw in dramatic pauses at key points in your speech to heighten the audience’s interest.

2. Can’t Hear/Understand The Speaker

Another frequent audience complaint is not being able to hear or understand the speaker. The simple solution to this complaint is to test your sound system before your speech and to project your voice louder than what you think is necessary.

While talking loudly is necessary, it is not enough. When people get nervous (as most people do before delivering a speech), they have a tendency to talk faster. Many audiences can hear a speaker just fine, but can’t understand him because he’s zipping through his speech at a blistering pace! In your own speeches, be sure to talk slowly and enunciate your words fully.

3. Not Enough Eye Contact

Audiences want to feel a connection to the speaker while listening to a presentation. The easiest way to connect with your audience is to make eye contact with them. When you lock eyes with a member of the audience, that audience member will instantly pay more attention to your speech and feel a greater connection with you.

When shifting your gaze around the room, a good rule of thumb I tell my clients is to pretend you’re making eye contact with a stranger walking down the street. Making eye contact for a few seconds is friendly, but making eye contact for a few minutes is creepy. Make eye contact with a member of the audience for a few seconds, and then shift your gaze to someone else and repeat the process again.

Although these mistakes are easy to correct, it is shocking how many speakers make them again and again. If you want to improve your speaking skills, the first step is to avoid having your audience complain about you!

And now I would like to offer you my free report on how to overcome your fear of public speaking, “The 5 Secrets Of Fearless Speakers.” You can download it by going to http://www.SuccessfulCommunication.com