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Articles Speaking Like A Pro A few ideas from a member of the Speakers Hall of Fame By Chuck Reaves
Professional speakers make it look so easy. They saunter out onto the stage, grab the audience with their first words and the hour goes by quickly. They amuse, challenge and inspire the people in the audience with their stories, they make people think and they end with a powerful, funny or poignant close. The members of the audience applaud and sometimes even stand as they do. Then it is your turn to speak to the same people. Uh-oh. Your message can be as effective, less effective or more effective than the one delivered by the professional. The secret is to use some of the same tricks of the trade that make professional speakers seem so, well, professional. How can you make your next presentation even more effective? Most of the answers are in the first paragraph above. There are several key words that will help you.
Here is a peek into the world of professional speaking. Here are some ideas you can use to make your presentation style appear more professional. Purpose Every presentation has a purpose. The better the speaker understands it, the better the audience will understand it. So, the first step is to decide what the primary purpose of your presentation will be. Here are some of the choices: inform, entertain, introduce, announce, warn, motivate, stimulate, educate or any combination of these. One of the best ways to determine the purpose of your presentation is to answer this question:
[Here's an inside secret you may not know: professional speakers often have multiple purposes, some overt, some subliminal. We will drive home the message of the presentation and also stimulate people to seek more information and maybe buy our tapes, demonstrate that we have additional material that can be used for another presentation on another date, etc.] Establish Territory Own the Stage (or the front of the room) Subliminally, you will communicate that you are in charge when you command the physical environment in which you are speaking. Here are some do's and don't's.
The Two Most Important Sentences
Know how you will open and know how you will close your next presentation. In the opening paragraph it appeared the speaker sauntered out onto the stage in complete control. There are two critical elements at work here: the introduction and the opening sentence. Professional speakers control their introductions. They usually provide a written introduction and request that it be read as written in most situations. The reason is that it is difficult to overcome a lousy introduction. Knowing what the opening line is going to be gives the speaker confidence. After all, the audience is sizing up the speaker and the speaker is sizing up the audience. It helps tremendously when the speaker has their opening on "auto pilot" and can begin their presentation immediately. Opening Sentence Since the opening sentence sets the tone for the entire presentation, what will you use? It depends on the purpose of the presentation. It is generally better to use an opening that has the same feel as the message. Upbeat messages can use an upbeat opening. Serious messages require a serious opening. Avoid an opening like, "Before we talk about the layoffs that are coming and our disappointing results for last quarter, let me tell you one I heard the other day. A priest and a rabbi go into..." There are four basic openings, so choose the one that is most appropriate for each presentation.
[Here's an inside secret you may not know: Professional speakers have opening stories that tell them the mood of the audience, whether or not they are welcome and who their "friends" are in the audience. They modify their presentation as they speak based on the reaction to the opening story.] Flow Your presentation needs to have a logical flow, one that the people in the audience can follow. You can actually explain this up front. One of the oldest adages in the speaking profession is:
This process works well in helping the people in the audience remember your message. There are several effective ways of accomplishing this. One is to have a certain number of points and then tell the audience that you will be covering these five points. Visual aids can help here. You may also want to use acronyms: "What is power? Let's take the letters in the word "POWER" and let each letter serve as a memory jogger. The "P" represents..." Have a wrap up, tell them what you told them. Do a quick review of the important points. [Here's an inside secret you may not know: professional speakers use this to make sure they didn't miss anything the first time through!] Anecdotes, Jokes, Examples Punctuating a presentation with stories and humor can not only emphasize important points, it can also make the time seem to go by faster. We live in a culture that likes to be entertained. Use these tools to keep the message flowing. You can also use them to give the people in the audience a moment to mentally relax. After a long series of complex statements or detailed information, interject a tension breaker. [Here's an inside secret you may not know: Professional speakers have numerous stories and jokes they can use. They know the length of each one and will use them to insure that the presentation fits the time allotted.] Closing Nail it! Close your presentation with purpose. Even if you close your presentation with a question and answer session, you will still need a closing sentence or statement. There are several ways to close a presentation effectively:
[Here's an inside secret you may not know: Professional speakers have a number of stories they use for different occasions. They know the length of each one and the expected reaction. Based on what is happening during their presentation, they may use any one of a number of stories to close their presentation. If the audience has been unreceptive, they can turn it around with the right story. If the meeting was running late and they have to cut their message short, they can change their closing story, finish right on time and go out in a blaze of glory.] Critique How well did you do? What will you do differently next time? The best way to find out is to audio tape or video tape your presentation. Whatever you see that you do not like, you will change. Whatever you see that you did like, you will do it next time and you will do it more confidently. Of course, it always helps to solicit the opinions of others who you trust. Just remember that every speaker is different and every member of the audience is different. What one person likes another may not, so solicit many opinions. Of course, there are still times when you need a professional speaker... Sometimes only a professional speaker can accomplish your objectives. Some messages are best delivered by someone from the outside. Your people often need new perspectives and new ideas. When considering using a professional speaker, look for these things:
This information is provided to you as a value-added service from Chuck Reaves, CSP, CPAE. How To Ask For Anything You Want and Get It The Third Party By Chuck Reaves Have you ever noticed how some people respond to your questions by asking for repeated clarification? They want to know how you want the question answered. They don't want to offend or appear stupid, so they hedge around the answer long enough to figure out what an appropriate response might be. You can eliminate this exercise by introducing a third party into your question. Instead of asking, "What do you think of my idea?" try asking, "What do you think Mr. Johnson will think of my idea?" Look at how this works. Joe, the person you asked, is free to say anything he wishes because you're not asking what Joe thinks, you're asking what Mr. Johnson thinks. Mr. Johnson may never have discussed the idea, but Joe is free to talk. When you introduce a third party, the information you receive is coming from the heart and mind of the individual answering the question, not the third party. Even if Joe has discussed the idea with Mr. Johnson, he'll still be giving his version of Johnson's opinion. Either way, it tells you more about the person answering the question than it does about the third party. Using a third party puts you and the person being questioned figuratively on the same side of the desk. It seems as if the two of you are discussing a third entity. Try using different third parties. Ask how the person thinks your peers, subordinates and superiors would think. Ask them how the president of the company (or the United States) would think. As long as Joe feels he is speaking for someone else, he will speak less guardedly. You might even try combining techniques. A client asked me to come look at his business, a privately-held company bearing the owner's name. His name was everywhere, on the products, on the signs and on the paychecks. Everyone knew who the boss was. As I drove up and walked through the production facilities there was every sign of decaying morale. The grass needed cutting and paint was peeling. Inside, there was waste everywhere, employees were moving slowly and lackadaisically. There was no enthusiasm and no energy in the place. After meeting with the owner for a while, I learned that whenever he was having a bad day he would go out on the production floor and fire somebody. It just sort of cheered him up. As you might imagine, people were afraid of him, intimidated by him and losing respect for him. I decided to work on that assumption, his people were losing respect for him and that's why morale was low, productivity was down and waste was up. He told me that he had called an employee meeting to find out what was wrong. He brought all 250 employees into the cafeteria and asked, "What's wrong around here?" How do you think the employees responded? They gave him a unanimous, "Everything's fine." After all, this is a man who fires people for a good time! How else could they answer? That's when he called me. I said, "Look, I know you've asked them once, but we really need to go back and ask again. I think the problem is that your employees have lost respect for you and we need to find out why. Then we can do some things to restore their respect. Let's build that assumption into a question and see how your people respond. Go down to the production floor and pick out an employee. Anybody. Ask this question, 'Why don't you respect me?'" He did and it didn't work. This is a boss who enjoys firing people. Now he's going around asking employees a pointed question that, if answered truthfully, is liable to get them a pink slip. Of course they didn't respond. He came back to his office and told me he hadn't learned anything. He had gone up to an employee named Robby and said, "Robby, why don't you respect me?" Robby effectively dodged the question after stammering around for a while. "Here's what I want you to try next," I said. "Introduce a third party." We formulated a question and the client went back and found Robby. "Robby, why doesn't William respect me?" he asked. All of a sudden Robby felt free to talk, even though Robby and William had never discussed the subject. My client got an ear full. He came back to his office with three pages of notes. I said, "Great! Now what are you going to do with this information?" He said, "Fire William." We talked about what had happened and, of course, he didn't fire William. But he did learn an important technique that continues to serve him well. Introducing a third party takes the heat off of a potentially hot question. It allows the other person to offer an honest answer without feeling pressured to do so, and it gives you another opportunity to ask for anything you want and get it. |
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