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www.skillpath.comConfident Public Speaking

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Confident Public Speaking

®

Symbol Key

Symbols used in this workbook:

Introduction: A brief overview of the course you are about to begin

Learning Objectives: A guide to a session’s key points intended to help focus your attention on important elements and essential take-aways

Summary: A quick review of what you have learned in the current session

Personal Action Plan: An opportunity to apply your newly learned skills and knowledge to your specific work environment

SkillTip: A short, quick and to-the-point productivity tip

Table of ConTenTS

Introduction .........................................................................................................................................................................................................3

Three Elements of a Great Presentation ............................................................................................................................................4

Five Types of Speeches and How to Excel at Each .......................................................................................................................4

Proven Tips for Calming Your Nerves—on the Spot .................................................................................................................5

A Step-by-Step Process for Quickly Structuring a Solid Speech ........................................................................................5

Ways to Instantly Make Your Audience Really Like You ........................................................................................................6

Six Classic Ways to Open—and Capture the Group’s Undivided Attention..............................................................6

How to Make Statistics and Technical Information Sing—Goodbye Boredom! ...................................................7

Help! You’re Losing Your Audience—What Can You Do? ......................................................................................................7

The Mechanics of Speaking—the Nuts and Bolts .......................................................................................................................8

Lessons From the World’s Greatest Salespeople on How to Persuade Others to Your Way of Thinking ..................................................................................................................10

Personal Action Plan—Effective Public Speaking ....................................................................................................................11

Bonus Material ................................................................................................................................................................................................12

3

Introduction

Being in the world of business will very likely mean having to speak in public at some point in time. Therefore, it pays to be prepared. This audio conference will teach you some of the skills you need to know to become an effective, confident and successful public speaker.

Describe three elements of a great presentation

List the steps for quickly structuring a solid speech

Describe ways to instantly make your audience really like you

Explain how to open—and capture the group’s undivided attention

4

Three Elements of a Great Presentation

Be sure your presentation contains these three elements and you’ll be off to a great start.

Content: Audiences today have short attention span—they’re used to sound bites, factoids, quick information in bite-sized pieces

Design/Flow: Your presentation can’t be poorly constructed or difficult to follow. Make it easy for your audience to stay with you.

Delivery: Must be engaging, if not entertaining. Some topics aren’t entertaining, but the presentation still has to be lively and interesting.

Five Types of Speeches and How to Excel at Each

Know what your ultimate goal is—to inform, inspire, motivate, sell?

Type Example Goal

Informative Reports Illustrate, clarify, elaborate on a topic

Demonstration Sales pitches, product announcements

Convey explanatory information, show how something works

Persuasive PR, politics, sermons, ads Change or reinforce attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, values

Ceremonial Introductions, awards, keynotes, commemoratives

Honor a person, event or achievement

Impromptu Toasts, after-dinner, in-class discussions, spur-of-the-moment meetings

Varies with situation: Entertain, share thoughts, gain support, challenge, solicit information, etc.

How to excel at each type of presentation:

1. Do your homework

2. Audience expectations

3. Always give a summary, review or recap

5

Proven Tips for Calming Your Nerves—on the Spot

Does it surprise you to know that some surveys have shown that the fear of public speaking is number one on the list of fears—higher than that of death, spiders and snakes? So if you are one of the people who would rather fall into an Indiana Jones snake pit than speak publicly, then these tips are for you.

Acknowledge that nerves are normal

Control your breathing

Picture yourself successful

Adopt a positive and confident outlook

Adopt a warm-up routine/checklist

Keep your focus in the right place

Meet and greet the audience before you speak

Don’t apologize or call attention to your nervousness

A Step-by-Step Process for Quickly Structuring a Solid Speech

Use this six-step process to help you structure a solid speech that will give your audience what they need and want from you.

Six-step process:

1. Gather all available information

2. Categorize it to make modular

3. Analyze for relevance/value

4. Sequence the information

5. Prioritize

6. Fine tune

6

Ways to Instantly Make Your Audience Really Like You

Face it; there are people you like and people you don’t like. The same can be said for speakers. But use these tips to quickly make your audience like you—and listen to what you have to say.

Don’t violate their time or trust

Meet and greet prior to start

Engage them

Help them feel good about themselves

Talk to them, not at them

Avoid jargon

Display empathy

Use a well-crafted story, especially if the audience is resistant and/or the material is dry

Make your topic real and important to you and it will be real and important to your audience

Six Classic Ways to Open—and Capture the Group’s Undivided Attention

Use this REACTS acronym to help you remember six ways to open and capture your audience’s attention from the very start.

R elate a maxim

E xplain via analogy

A sk a question

C ite a quotation

T ell a story

S tate a fact

7

How to Make Statistics and Technical Information Sing—Goodbye Boredom!

Statistics and technical information are inherently less interesting than other information being presented. The key is to add a more interesting context.

Tips for statistics

Interpret statistics accurately and clearly

Create a comparison

Condense or expand to increase impact and add perspective

Tips for technical information

When you speak it:

Start with a fact

Add modifiers

Add explanatory information

Personalize the relevance

When you show it:

Add graphics—charts, graphs, pictures

Remove all extraneous and distracting features—bars, lines, words and boxes

Help! You’re Losing Your Audience—What Can You Do?

The first step in dealing with losing your audience is to not lose them in the first place. But if you do, follow these steps:

Be proactive: Ask questions to verify understanding at specific presentation milestones

Stick to the agenda: Avoid tangents and stay on time

React immediately: As soon as your personal radar senses that you’re losing your audience

8

The Mechanics of Speaking— the Nuts and Bolts

“Speaking” is more than just the words coming out of your mouth.

1. Movement

A firm rule for deciding how and when to move around the stage:

All movement must have a purpose and must not distract from the body

of the presentation itself.

Movement that lacks purpose and distracts from your presentation:

Pacing

Twirling your pen or laser pointer

Jingling items in your pockets

Exaggerated or repetitive gestures

Use the podium to your advantage—not as a crutch

The podium gives you a place of focus and power. It also hides you from the audience and provides a nifty avoidance mechanism.

Don’t use it, if at all possible. But if you DO have to use a podium:

Avoid the death grip

Don’t hide behind it

Don’t stare down at it

Move away from it as often as you can

2. Eye contact

Eye contact is not the same as staring. While eye contact is important for a presenter, be very aware of cultural differences where it can work against you either by insulting others or by demonstrating that you don’t understand their culture.

Make it work for you by:

Using eye contact to create bonds with audience members. You can try to bond with each participant if you’re in a small group, or in sectors if you’re in front of a large group.

Using eye contact to monitor audience response. Check for level of attention, glazed over look, note-taking, other signs of attention or inattention.

9

3. Gestures

A gesture is a movement, usually of the body or limbs, that expresses or emphasizes an idea, sentiment or attitude.

The purpose of a gesture is to reinforce the verbal message of the moment. Gestures dramatize words, dissipate tension, function as visual aids and stimulate participation. But remember, gestures must mean the same things to the audience that they do to the speaker.

A cardinal rule in a presentation is don’t do or say anything that lacks a purpose. This includes gestures.

Four types of gestures:

1. Descriptive: Clarify or enhance, indicate size, shape, location

2. Emphatic: Underscore what is being said

3. Suggestive: Symbolize ideas or emotions

4. Prompting: Evokes a specific response from the audience

A gesture’s location can affect its meaning:

High: Inspiration, emotion, height

Below shoulders: Sadness, rejection, apathy

Near heart: Love, sincerity

Gesturing naturally:

1. Gestures should reflect content

2. Suit the action to words and occasions

3. Don’t over-do it in number or intensity

4. Make them smooth and well-timed

5. Posture

4. The proper use of a microphone

Test your microphone before the presentation starts, not right before you begin to speak

Know how to operate it and its unique characteristics

Hold it at the proper distance to avoid popping Ps

Use a windscreen to minimize sibilance

Speak clearly

Avoid extraneous noises

10

Lessons From the World’s Greatest Salespeople on How to Persuade Others to Your Way of Thinking

Persuasion is defined as the process of changing or reinforcing someone’s beliefs, values, attitudes, point of view or behavior. All presentations are persuasive in nature. You want to get people from point A to point B, either in thought or in action. When speaking, persuasion is strongest when the information conveyed is bolstered by evidence and argument. Credibility also increases in importance—a non-credible speaker won’t be persuasive.

Ways to motivate an audience:

1. Dissonance: Causes your audience to experience discomfort when presented with information contrary to their thoughts, beliefs, values or behaviors

2. Listener needs: Focus on identifying a need that your audience has, and present a solution that will meet the need and/or solve the problem

3. Positive motivation: Stress how the benefits of the desired change meet or enhance the values of audience members

4. Negative motivation: Stress how the result of not making the desired change can cause negative consequences

11

Personal Action Plan— Effective Public Speaking

1. Considering what you have learned, what will you do differently the next time you structure a presentation?

2. Write an effective opening for a presentation on how to use a new database software that your audience is not happy about using.

3. You trip over an electrical cord. Write three things you might say:

1.

2.

3.

Whether you are an experienced speaker or just starting out, this audio conference has helped you by teaching you how to structure your presentation, what to do when things go wrong, how to get your audience to like you and how to make effective use of the “mechanics” of speaking.

12

bonuS maTerial

Remembering Your Material—the Pros and Cons of the Most Common Approaches

1. Memorize

Pro

Can yield effective results

Cons

Most difficult

Requires most work

Gestures and inflections are often unnatural

Mental blocks

Low spontaneity

2. Read

Pros

Effective for policy statements and specific announcements

Sometimes helps nervous people or beginners

Cons

Audience dislikes being read to

Causes disconnect between speaker and words

Leads to loss of normal inflection

Hard to listen to

Minimal eye contact

Minimal rapport

13

3. Notes

Pros

More normal inflection

More eye contact

Less writing—less work

Cons

Can get out of order if dropped

May not give enough information if you have a mental block

4. Visual aids

Pros

Creates a flow for the audience

Allows extemporaneous speech

Most flexible

Cons

Ineffective if not done right

Too text-heavy

More chance for typos/errors

14

Why and How You Must Analyze Your Audience Before You Speak

Making your presentation personally meaningful to your audience is impossible unless you know something about them: What are they interested in, what do they care about, what problems do they face, etc.?

Much analysis comes pre-program, where you get information from the organizer.

Ask:

Who/how many?

What do they know?

What do they want?

What are their needs?

What is the context/agenda?

Even when you’re well prepared, things can change. Then what do you do?

Scenario:

You realize that your audience has significantly changed from what you expected. Perhaps you were told you would be speaking to line workers. Instead, the audience is supervisors.

The solution? Work the room. Working the room allows you to be “CUED” in to your audience.

C ustomization: What special adjustments to your material will you need to make?

U nderstanding/knowledge: What level of expertise will you now address?

E xpectations: What does the audience want/need?

D emographics: What can you change about your presentation to fairly represent a mixed audience?

Audience analysis allows for increased personal meaningfulness of the content, effectiveness of the trainer and memorability for the participants.

It’s good to meet and greet the participants before your presentation starts, but be careful not to set yourself up for unmet expectations while you do.

Don’t invest too heavily in “what are you here to learn?” type of questions. These have the potential for backfiring on you if the audience hasn’t been briefed on what the presentation is about or if they come in with their own agendas, such as to take every opportunity to air grievances against their company.

15

The Biggest Goof-ups and How the Pros Cover Themselves

Losing your place: Pause for a moment and gather your composure. If you can’t remember, smile and ask the audience.

Repeating an earlier speaker: Unknowingly, you are repeating a previous speaker, using similar statistics, telling the same anecdote, taking credit for something an earlier speaker already took credit for, etc. Watch and listen for visual and auditory clues from the audience that this is happening. Snickering, buzzing whispers, etc., can all tell you something is up. If you’re confident, you can ask. If not, move on.

Tripping/dropping things: This is one of the few places where a self-deprecating remark can be acceptable. Example: “No extra charge for the entertainment.”

Putting your foot in your mouth: You have unintentionally made an inopportune or inappropriate statement. Apologize right away, and then move on.

(This might happen in a totally innocent context. Actor Richard Chamberlain was once asked what directors he’d like to work with, and named several, including one who had recently died. When confronted, he simply said “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”)

When Things Go Wrong …

When … Here’s what to do:

Things fall Pick them up

You fall Get up. Straighten your clothes, regain your composure and restart. Try a self-deprecating remark.

Your projector quits Switch to flip chart

Your microphone quits Move closer to your audience and project more

An alarm goes off Follow the emergency protocol, which you learned in advance from the organizer

You feel ill Minimize movement and conserve energy

16

PowerPoint® Do’s and Don’ts: The Secrets to Creating Simple and Clear PowerPoint® Slides

Simple and clear is not the same as plain and boring.

General PowerPoint® principles:

Your slides must be easy to read

— 14 or larger font size

— Use serif fonts

— Dark type on light background for a light room, light type on a dark background for a dark room

Use bullets, not complete sentences

— Use active words

— Stay jargon-free

Your slide design should complement and enhance your image

Show no more than two slides per minute to allow your audience to process the contents

Use logos and company colors when possible

PowerPoint® Do’s

1. Limit the amount of information on each slide

2. Utilize our natural left-to-right eye movement

3. Minimize the number of typefaces you use

4. Stick to basic color schemes

5. Make slides simple to understand

PowerPoint® Don’ts

1. Don’t equate your slide show with your presentation

2. Don’t put too much on a slide

3. Don’t over-animate your text

4. Don’t use garish color schemes

5. Don’t read your slides to the audience

PowerPoint® slides should support your presentation, not be your presentation.

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