A Short Guide to Public Speaking
July 28, 2008
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Delivering an effective presentation to 20 or to 200 people is difficult.
Because listeners have better access to information since the internet became commonplace, audiences expect more content from speakers today.
In addition, because of the entertainment slant of most media today, audiences want a presentation delivered with animation, humor, and pizzazz.
If you would rather spend your time preparing your content than reading a book on public speaking, this is an article especially for you!
From my experiences in delivering over l500 speeches during the past 20 years, here is a quick guide to giving an effective and interesting presentation your very first time.
Begin with something to get the attention of the audience. This might be a startling statement, statistic, or your own story.
Listeners pay close attention when a person begins with, “Two weeks ago as I was driving to work a car pulled out in front of me….”
You could begin with a current event: “You might have read in the paper this morning about the flood that….” A question is another way to make people listen.
“How many of you feel our society spends too much on medical care?” might be a way to begin a presentation about curbing costs.
Whatever technique you use, when you grab the attention of the audience you are on your way to a successful speech.
Second, be energetic in delivery. Speak with variety in your voice. Slow down for a dramatic point and speed up to show excitement.
Pause occasionally for effect. Don’t just stand behind the lectern, but move a step away to make a point. When you are encouraging your audience, take a step toward them.
Gesture to show how big or wide or tall or small an object is that you are describing. Demonstrate how something works or looks or moves as you tell about it.
Show facial expression as you speak. Smile when talking about something pleasant and let your face show other emotions as you tell about an event or activity. Whatever your movements, they should have purpose.
Structure your speech. Don’t have more than two or three main points, and preview in the beginning what those points will be.
With each point, have two or three pieces of support, such as examples, definitions, testimony, or statistics.
Visual aids are important when you want your audience to understand a process or concept or understand a financial goal. Line graphs are best for trends.
Bar graphs are best for comparisons and pie graphs are best for showing distribution of percentages.
Tie your points together with transitions. These could be signposts such as “First,” “Second,” or "Finally."
Use an internal summary by simply including the point you just made and telling what you plan to talk about next. “Now that we have talked about structure, let’s move on to the use of stories,” would be an example.
When you have an introduction, two or three main points with support for each, appropriate transitions, and a conclusion, you will have your speech organized in a way that the audience can follow you easily.
Tell your own story somewhere in the presentation–especially in a technical presentation. Include a personal experience that connects to your speech content, and the audience will connect with you.
You want to help the audience link emotionally with what you are talking about, and the personal experience does that.
With almost any topic you might choose, you have at least one “war story” to relate to the topic. When you tell the story, simply start at the beginning and move chronologically through the narrative, including answers to the “W” questions: “Who,” What, “When,” "Why," and “Where.”
To add interest and understanding to your speech, include a visual aid. A visual aid could be an object, a flip chart, a PowerPoint presentation, overhead projector slides, or a dry erase board.
Whatever visual you are using, make sure everyone can see it. The best way to insure this is to put the visual where you will be speaking, and then find the seat farthest from it and determine if you can read the visual from that seat.
Introduce the visual properly rather than simply throwing it at your audience; explain what the visual will do before you unveil it. Don’t allow the visual to become a silent demonstration. Keep talking as you show the visual.
You are still the main event and your visual is an aid. Look at your audience, not your visual.
When the visual is not in use, hide it from the audience. Humans are a curious lot, tending to keep looking at the object and losing track of the speaker—you!
If you are delivering a persuasive speech, in addition to your own stories include testimony of experts whom the audience respects and whose views reinforce your points.
Add a key statistic when possible to show the seriousness of what you are discussing. For example, if I were discussing the need for improved listening to better serve your customers, I might add that although we spend half of our communication time in listening, our listening efficiency is only about 25%.
By using stories, testimony, and statistics in your persuasive talk, you add depth to your evidence.
Look at the audience as you speak. If it is a small audience, you can look at each person in a short period of time. If it is a large audience, look at the audience in small “clumps” and move from one clump to another.
One way to insure good eye contact is to look at your audience before you start to speak. Go to the lectern and pause, smile, look at the audience, and then speak.
This will help you maintain good eye contact throughout your presentation as well as commanding immediate attention.
One of the ways to have consistently good eye contact is not to read your speech. Use note cards that have key words on them.
The word or phrase should trigger the thought in your mind and then you can speak it. If you are including a quotation or complex statistics, reading from your note card actually lends credibility.
If you write out your speech you will tend to read it and lose eye contact with the audience, as well as not being as enthusiastic in delivery as when you speak from note cards.
Include a “wow” factor in your speech. Something in your speech should make your audience think, “Wow!” It could be a story, a dramatic point, an unusual statistic, or an effective visual that helps the audience understand immediately.
With a “wow” factor, you then have something to look forward to in the speech that you know will have an impact on your audience.
You’ll become a more enthusiastic speaker because the “wow” factor will get you as well as your audience pumped for the speech.
Consider using a touch of humor in your speech. Don’t panic at this suggestion; you are not becoming a comedian but rather lightening up a serious speech so that people will be more accepting and interested in your ideas.
Humor will help you to be perceived as an amiable person, and it is hard for people to disagree or be bored if they are smiling at you. Until you have lots of experience, keep your humor short.
Perhaps inject a one- liner or a quotation. Yogi Berra said a lot of funny things. “You can observe a lot just by watching” for example.
Tell a short embarrassing moment in your life that you might have thought not funny at the time. Now that you can laugh at the experience, you understand the old adage, “Humor is simply tragedy separated by time and space.”
Don’t poke fun at your audience; you should be the object of any shortcoming, showing that you can laugh at yourself. Avoid long stories or jokes. Even seasoned speakers know that funny stories soon become unfunny if they go on too long.
Probably the least risky use of humor is a cartoon. The cartoon is separate from you and if people don’t laugh, you don’t feel responsible. (Be sure to secure permission to use it.)
Finally, leave the audience with something to think about. People remember best what you say last.
You might summarize your main points, or you might complete the statement, “What I want you to do as a result of this presentation is….” But beyond that, make your last words a thought to ponder.
For example, I might end a speech on becoming a better speaker with “As Cicero said centuries ago, 'The skill to do comes with the doing.'”
A more modern guide to effective public speaking was penned by some unknown sage: "Know your stuff. Know whom you are stuffing. Know when they are stuffed."
One never becomes a “perfect” speaker; developing public speaking skills is a life-long experience. But the points discussed here will get you started in becoming the speaker you want to be and the speaker your audience wants to hear.
Stephen D. Boyd can be reached at http://www.sboyd.com/ .
Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is a professor of speech communication at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Kentucky. He is also a trainer in communication who presents more than 60 seminars and workshops a year to corporations and associations. See additional articles and resources at http://www.sboyd.com. He can be reached at 800-727-6520 or at info@sboyd.com.
Training Success Is All in the Preparation
July 24, 2008
By Shannon Lear Martin
As in any aspect of life, if you want to get somewhere, you have to know where you are going. Otherwise, you get the results you've always gotten and wonder why things never change.
The same is true when designing training programs. In my field of performance consulting, I often talk to prospective clients about their past failed training programs. The comment usually sounds like, "Well, we tried that before and it just didn't work." My response is to find out what preparation was done prior to creation and delivery of the training.
In most cases, where "training" failed, the reason for the training was not properly identified and clearly linked to the business requirements. Or, management threw training at the problem, without truly assessing and understanding the core problem. Training programs that lack a connection with an established business objective are often doomed before they begin!
Key Questions Prior to Training Development
1. What business problem are you trying to solve?
2. Will all levels of the organization be included in the process?
3. What will success look like upon completion of the training program?
4. What obstacles will potentially hinder the implementation of skills learned?
5. What are the consequences for those that do not participate in the training?
6. What are the consequences for those that do not adopt the skills learned?
7. How will you measure success?
If any of these questions are left unanswered prior to development or design of a training program, the door is left open for failure, either in the application of the skills learned, or the justification of the training program in the eyes of management. Answer these questions clearly and everyone will understand what's at stake and recognize successful results!
Shannon Lear Martin is a performance consultant with TrainUtopia, where she helps clients measure and improve organizational performance in support of their business goals and objectives. She can be reached at smartin@trainutopia.com.
Personal Anecdotes
July 11, 2008
By Tina Rowe
That Add to Your Message - Telling the Stories of Your Life
The Value of Personal Anecdotes: Almost every great speaker–and some not so great ones–use personal stories. Politicians love them! Now, you can too! If you are a supervisor, manager, trainer, parent, coach, or conversationalist (that fits most of us), personal anecdotes can add color and sparkle to conversations. You do not have to have something new happen every day, simply use the many stories of your life. You can:
- Reinforce a learning moment.
- Share a human situation in your work or life history.
- Add humor, inspiration or energy to a meeting or presentation.
However, as you have likely discovered, effectively telling an anecdote of any kind is not easy, and telling a personal anecdote is even more challenging. If you have ever sat in a meeting or in an audience and mentally grimaced with embarrassment, frustration, boredom or irritation while someone told a story, you know you don't want to get the same reaction!
Some negative reactions to personal anecdotes:
- If you talk about your experiences or accomplishments excessively–even for the purpose of encouraging others or sharing what you have in common with them–you can seem to be bragging or living in the past.
- If you frequently talk about your mistakes, listeners may laugh with you but start viewing you as an incompetent who has no right to critique their work or offer advice.
- If you nearly always follow-up something someone else has said with, "That reminds me of the time when……" it can seem as though you have a "war story" for every situation or that you are trying to top that persons story.
- If your anecdotes are lengthy, very detailed or not particularly entertaining, you may be considered boring–especially if you have told the same story repeatedly.
- If you tell stories that clearly are very exaggerated or not true, even for a good purpose, you will lose credibility and people won't believe the true stories you share.
Don't get shut off! If you are not skillful at telling stories and anecdotes, listeners will shut you off mentally the moment you start to use a personal illustration–and eventually they'll groan about them to others. That is not the way you want your conversations or presentations to be remembered!
- Practice the story. Practice before you tell it the first time, and occasionally after that, so you don't misspeak, or cast about mentally for the times, dates or details, and so you can tell it concisely and clearly.
- Have a purpose for the anecdote. Do you want to reinforce a point, connect with people on a personal level, redirect thinking, or share a smile? Choose a story that is right for your purpose, rather than tossing in a story just to say you told one.
- Tell the truth. If you tell it as though it really happened, it should have really happened. Otherwise, it isn't a personal story, it's a lie. You can change details or put a funny or dramatic spin on it, but keep it true, especially your role in it.
- Keep it brief. You may enjoy replaying every tiny detail in your mind, but others may wish you would hurry up and get to the point.
- Keep the emotions you display and the tone of voice you use, appropriate for the story you are telling. If you laugh about details that a reasonable person would not find amusing, or tell an otherwise amusing story in a somber way, listeners may misunderstand your purpose, or think you are not very discerning about the situation.
- Put energy into it. Tell an interesting story, don't just ploddingly recount an event. You should nearly always speak a bit faster when telling an anecdote. Be appropriately and comfortably animated and speak with forcefulness. Act it up a bit!
- Finish and move on. Finish your anecdote with a few words to remind listeners once again of what the story was designed to illustrate, then segue back to the original conversation or presentation.
Keep an anecdote notebook: Consider keeping a notebook or computer file to remind you of situations that have illustrative potential, and review your file occasionally or when you are preparing a presentation, so you don't forget.
The python story: One of my brothers once reminded me of a situation I had told him about, and said, "That python story was the funniest story you ever told me." I had completely forgotten that incident–but now I use it in presentations quite often to illustrate several key points. The python story is one of the stories of my life. Look for ways to effectively share yours.
***Tina Lewis Rowe is an "informational, inspirational, insightful" presenter, trainer and writer. Her online training journal at http://tinalewisrowe.com provides a fascinating mix of workplace tips, thoughts on life and work, and occasional lapses into philosophy.
Tina speaks and trains about personal, professional and organizational development, with a focus on supervision, management and leadership. She brings a unique background to all of her work, since she is undoubtedly the only one of her kind in the world:
She is a twenty-five year veteran police officer, a former presidential appointed United States Marshal, one of the Workplace Doctors on the Ask The Workplace Doctors website, http://workplacedoctors.com - the author of a book on police promotional processes, as well as the author of the most widely read PDF on the security role of church greeters and ushers, ever written!
Tina presents to business, government and criminal justice work groups and is an energized, warm and witty, yet thought provoking and inspirational presenter for conferences and meetings. Audiences love her!
(Tina wrote every word of this hyperbole and swears it is true!)
Presentation Anxiety - The 3 Main Techniques To Manage Anxiety For A Better Presentation
June 29, 2008
By Andrew Ivey
In the moments, hours or days before a presentation we can be very anxious. Anxious about ourselves, anxious about our audience and anxious about our presentation style.
Such anxiety can be deep rooted. It can become all pervasive and threatening. But fortunately there are techniques to both overcome anxiety and actively use it to our advantage.
There are 3 main techniques to master.
- Preparation. Being prepared counts for everything. Effective planning, preparation and rehearsal are essential. Our planning should include audience research; conference themes; presentation timings and audience expectations. Our preparation should encompass our working mission, objectives, title and the main points we want to make. And don't forget an explosive start and a powerful finish to the presentation. Allowing time and space for rehearsal is also vital. Rehearsal ensures that we can run to the time allotted. It ensures that our word and sentence structures are clear and consistent. We won't become tangled with over complexity. And importantly it also ensures that we are fully familiarized with both content and subject. Familiarization helps us to be fully prepared for eventualities that might otherwise throw us off track.
- Mental Preparation. Being ready to give a good presentation requires a state of mental preparedness. Being prepared is one thing. Being up for it is another. We should remember why it is that we are speaking; because we have the expertise, we are the best and we are professional. Mental preparation requires us to remind ourselves of our own capabilities. We boost our own esteem and belief as a result.
- Breathing. The best rule for public speaking is: keep breathing, without it all is lost. Droll, but true. Before we begin our presentation we need to control our breathing with effective breathing exercises. We breathe in deeply through the nose and exhale slowly through the mouth. We repeat this many times before we need to speak. These exercises, channeling our anxiety and slowing the heart rate, are best performed standing up. In the presentation our breathing should be moderated with our talk. Talking at the rate of 150 to 200 words a minute is about right. It could be slower but should not be faster. When we accelerate our speech we lose our breathing control, the heart increases its beat rate and we become more anxious.
Our presentations become effective when our underlying anxiety — our nerves — are channeled to better effect. Our natural nervous state will result in a polished performance when we are in control. Preparation and planning ensure that we are confident. But not over confident. With our mental preparation complete we know that we are the best one for this presentation — that's why we are asked to speak. And our breathing is optimized for a presentation. It's controlled and measured and timed with our speaking. We are ready to present.
Andrew Ivey is the principal presentation skills trainer at Time to Market the UK-based presentation skills training resource.
Time to Market provides presentation skills and public speaking training in single day and half day courses.
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Presentation Anxiety - The 3 Main Techniques To Manage Anxiety For A Better Presentation
By Andrew Ivey
Public Speaking Tips
May 12, 2008
By Mike Bova
I'm going to fess up. Public speaking did not come easy for me. I would get very nervous (which led to dry mouth), lose my train of thought and use a lot of filler words like: and, and um, um, you know etc. I have come a long way from those early days. Public speaking comes a lot easier for me now. If you would like to improve your public speaking skills, this article is for you.
Before I tell you what has worked for me, I'm going to give (just like those weight loss infomercials do) a disclaimer…results may vary. Now, here is what has worked for me.
Open with a joke or say something funny. This is a good ice breaker. Being funny will loosen up the audience and you as well. Make sure "the funny" is tasteful, and if it goes over well, your confidence will immediately build.
Be prepared. You will of course prepare before you speak. Use the internet (which is an incredible resource by the way) to do some research. If you type an outline, this will help you prepare your delivery. Just like when you took notes in school, write down your main points and your secondary points. You can definitely ad lib, but try not to create too many rabbit trails. Rabbit trails will cause you to lose your train of thought and cause you to forget where you left off. Stick to the outline, rehearse as many times as needed to know your outline by heart. Being well prepared will boost your confidence.
Create a distraction. If it's possible, make a handout and give it to each member of the audience. Doing this will take the audiences mind off you somewhat. The handout will be similar to what you're speaking about and you could leave some blanks the audience would have to fill in. This would be more of a teaching than a preaching.
Continue to be funny. If you can think of funny stories (either your own or someone else's) that are related to the topic and can drive a point home, use them.
Give examples. Again using stories or situations (funny or not) that your audience can relate to. These are real crowd pleasers.
Be as animated as you can. Raise and lower your voice. Walk back and forth. Make your public speaking engagement interesting. This leads me to my next tip.
Make what you're speaking about interesting. If what you are speaking on is boring, or if what you have prepared is boring, find a way to…. "BAM, SPICE IT UP A LITTLE!"
Use props or other visual effects. Overheads and power point presentations are good. Any props you can use are will help you as well.
Encourage audience participation. You can do things like dividing the room in two and on cue one side of the room says, "ooh" and the other side says, "ah" or use audience members to help you with illustrations.
Close with a question and answer session. This will allow for a nice finish.
Being a great public speaker, like anything, takes practice. If you have a video camera, set it up on a tripod and tape yourself. Try to be conscience of those filler words. Work on your joke telling and story telling. Practice being animated. After reviewing your videos, make any necessary adjustments. I wish you all the best with your public speaking engagements. Have fun & "break a leg."
Mike Bova is the Madison County Advertising Director & Business Columnist for Eagle Newspapers in
