Tag Archive for: public speaking
If your audience cannot hear you, you have lost them.
If there is no microphone, and even if there is, it is your responsibility, in the end, to make sure people can hear you.
1. Project your voice - right to that back row.
2. Articulate well. Practice overdoing it sometimes - hilarious, I know, but a great way to remind you voice muscles that they are expected to work for you and to say words properly without slurring, mumbling, muttering or leaving off the ends of words. In today's fast-paced world we sometimes develop lazy habits.
3. Take the time to pronounce each word properly. Research every word you use so you don't get caught. You may be heard, but it's going to be distracting if you mispronounce something, or stumble over it.
4. Using abbreviations or acronyms? Unless they are in common usage, they might as well have been whispered if someone in your audience has not idea what you mean.
5. You will have made the effort to visit the venue if at all possible before you present. While you are checking it over for all possibilities, remember to check the accoustics, and the microphone.
6. Have someone you can call on to deal with unforeseen issues like a noisy air conditioner, a noisy audience member or a noisy microphone. If there is no someone, have a disaster management plan in place.
7. Don't forget to make your audience very aware that you have their interests at heart, that you are meeting their needs, and that you are all in this together, or they will stop listening anyway.
And, in the end, there is always that old tried and true phrase "lend me your ears" - well --- maybe!
Whether you’re an inveterate lover of language books or just want to win a lot more anger-free arguments on the page, at the podium, or over a beer, Thank You for Arguing is for you ... and I featured it at Pivotal Public Speaking >> here
Thank You for Arguing is your master class in the art of persuasion, taught by professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill.
The time-tested secrets this book discloses include Cicero’s three-step strategy for moving an audience to action—as well as Honest Abe’s Shameless Trick of lowering an audience’s expectations by pretending to be unpolished. But it’s also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians’ use of “code” language to appeal to specific groups and an eye-opening assortment of popular-culture dodges—including The Yoda Technique, The Belushi Paradigm, and The Eddie Haskell Ploy.
Whether you’re an inveterate lover of language books or just want to win a lot more anger-free arguments on the page, at the podium, or over a beer, Thank You for Arguing is for you. Written by one of today’s most popular language mavens, it’s warm, witty, erudite, and truly enlightening. It not only teaches you how to recognize a paralipsis and a chiasmus when you hear them, but also how to wield such handy and persuasive weapons the next time you really, really want to get your own way.
JAY HEINRICHS spent 25 years as a journalist and publishing executive before becoming a fulltime advocate for the lost art of rhetoric. Since then he's taught persuasion to Fortune 500 companies, Ivy League universities, NASA, and the Pentagon. He is also the author of "Word Hero: A Fiendishly Clever Guide to Crafting the Lines that Get Laughs, Go Viral, and Live Forever."
"A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success."
— Robert Orben
Your credibility will be built on how your audience perceives your competence, your character and your charisma.
Let's look at that first element of credibility - competence. To be seen as credible you need to be seen as competent.
Obviously you need to know your material, and know it very well. Know it so that you can answer questions that go deep into your subject. Also know your limitations and how you can refer questions to someone who is an expert.
Establish your competence right from the beginning, by ensuring your audience is aware of your credentials and experience. These can be written, very factually into your advertising material, website and brochures. They can also be written into the introduction you are given when you speak. You can also weave them into your speech, and particularly into the introduction. Bragging will not work here. Stories will, however be incredibly effective. Make sure the stories support a point you are making, and it would be good if the point is not necessarily about your competence. Use stories about your experiences, about your client successes and case studies.
Being well organised will show your competence.
Confident presentation will indicate competence. Be prepared for your presentation so that the confidence is genuine. Use eye contact to further establish your confidence and sincerity – your comfort with your subject and the act of sharing your information. Composure – emotional control - is anther facet of this. Be prepared for anything that might throw your emotional control.
Finally, use quotations, statistics and other support material from sources that are held in high regard by your audience. If you are quoting a source on health, for example, you would choose, say, the Mayo Clinic rather than, for example, Wikipedia.
Plant the seeds of your credibility throughout your speech or presentation. Establish your competence, and you will have established a foundation for successfully persuading your audience to act, be or think in the way you wanted.
I was prowling around Youtube this afternoon (as one does on a Sunday when the grey day does not permit any exploration outdoors!!) and found this beautifully lucid, simple and yet strangely powerful way of putting together an elevator pitch. I love it. Next networking meeting, I'm going to try it out ...
"There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you."
— Winston Churchill
Ah Mr. Churchill! He created resonance with the audience, knowing that most find speeches difficult, intrigued them with the mention of two things, and used wonderful "rhetoric" with his phrases that repeated structure and image. What a speaker!
Right now, under the banner of a business called Pivotal Public Speaking, I am teaching small business owners about story - story for speakers? ... not altogether ...
If you are speaking to grow your business, then story is vital. It gives you credibility. It creates a deep engagement with your audience of potential clients. Most powerfully, though, it allows you to take a potential client into your business with you so that they feel, and hear, just what it is like to work with you, just what exactly it is that you do for them.
That is "if you are speaking ..."
The stories that you choose and tell, about your business, though, can then be used and re-used elsewhere with exactly the same power.
1. You can use them on the "About" page of your website/blog/web presence. They give that same level of engagement, credibility and awareness, that will have your web visitors clicking through to find out more.
2. You can use them on your sales pages. Let your prospective buyers know that you understand their pain and problems. Let them see your product in action. This is word of mouth marketing - online!
3. You can use them in conversations. You connect at a networking event. What more natural and yet powerful way of deepening that connection is there, than story? People arrive at your product display. Conversation, and story, will give them the human face of your business, your product, your service. And people do tend to buy people first. We know that, though often instictively.
4. You can use your story/stories in your social media marketing. On the surface this means sharing stories about your business - regularly. Facebook loves stories. Distill them down for twitter into tiny conversational pieces. Give them "corporate" style, if you need to, for LinkedIn. Under the surface, though, your brand story drives all that you do in social media. Confine all that you do, say and share to that defined specific story and you establish a strong brand presence.
5. Finally, you can use your stories when you are teaching. Many speaking engagements revolve around teaching about something in your business. Many businesses revolve around teaching something. Here the power of story is perfect for you because it creates engagement, it helps overcome objections to new ideas and it is a vital tool in the integration of brain function so necessary to successful learning.
So in "teaching" story, I am excited to be giving people far more than just a speaking tool, though it is certainly that.
If you are interested in learning more about story, either simply as a speaking tool, or as a tool to grow your business, why don't you join me?
You will learn
How to use stories for different outcomes.
How to draw an audience into your world or your business using story.
4 of the basic types of business story and where to find the ones in your business/life that will be more effective when you speak.
Story structure - the elements and processes of story and how to apply them and which ones work best in different situations.
How to integrate story into your speaking - how it fits into the structure of your presentation, how to use your voice, stage and stage presence to greatest effect and how to remember it.
Integrated into the program is a thread of how you use story to propel your personal growth, the growth of your business and your vision for the future
This is small group workshop format. In all of my workshops I find people learn much from each other, as they are learning from me, and I intend to maintain that.
The next workshop intake will be available later in the year. If you would like to be notified, please send me a message from my contact page and I will keep you in the loop.
