As you progress in your career and take on leadership
roles, you must be able to speak comfortably and with
confidence in public.
For some of us public speaking is as natural as breathing.
And for others it’s met with more trepidation than
jumping out of an airplane.
Whether you need to address a small sales staff of three
people or to make a formal presentation with visuals to a
department of thousands, there is a method to preparing
yourself that will help insure your success.
And if you’re someone who doesn’t yet have to
do any public speaking, use this knowledge to evaluate
others who speak to you. You’ll be able to pinpoint
why their speech or meeting didn’t go so well, or why
you were captivated by them from the start.
Written communication delivered by letter, memo, or email
is two-dimensional. The words exist on paper or on the
computer screen all by themselves. The reader can only
interpret the writer’s intent, emotion, or innuendo
from the text.
But oral communication is much more complex and persuasive
because it’s three-dimensional. You see or hear the
speaker in addition to the content of their message. How
the speaker uses eye contact, facial expression, body
movements, voice tone and inflection all influence how
their presentation is perceived and remembered.
A good speech is organized with three basic components in
mind:
1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Conclusion
The Introduction of a presentation has 5 sub-parts:
A. Get Attention – the moment people see you,
they’re beginning to form a judgment about you and
what they think you’re going to say. To gain your
audience’s attention, you must be creative in how you
begin your presentation. A good speaker will start off
with an interesting fact, a statement or question that
seems contradictory or offbeat, or with something that
makes listeners laugh. This perks them up, captures their
eyes and ears, and enables listeners to give you their
maximum concentration.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the wife of Charles Lindbergh said
“Good communication is as stimulating as black
coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.”
So think about how you can serve up your own form of
espresso right from the start.
B. Why Listen – after capturing their attention, the
goal is to persuade your audience why they need to keep
listening to you. To do this, you have to effectively
communicate what your information is going to do for the
listeners. It could be to keep them safe from harm, save
them money, or to improve their success on the job.
Remember that your audience will be engaged only when they
understand how your information will impact them personally.
C. Thesis – after you’ve convinced listeners
why they need to continue listening, tell them exactly what
you’re going to prove to them in your upcoming
information. This can be thought of as a summary of the
Body of the presentation that’s coming after the
Introduction.
D. Preview Body – after you’ve stated your
thesis, give listeners a preview of what’s to come.
Be specific, but brief, regarding each main point that you
are going to cover in the Body.
E. Transition – the last part of the Introduction is
to move listeners into the next phase of your presentation,
the Body. You can literally say, “Now we’re
going to move on to my first main point”, or
“Let’s discuss more detail about what
I’ve been speaking to you about”, for example.
A good presenter will accompany a verbal transition with a
physical one. Perhaps they change their location by moving
from the front of the room to the center of the room, or
take a few steps to the left or right. This engages more
of the senses of the listener and cues them into the fact
that you’re moving on, and that they need to re-focus
themselves.
The Body is the part that contains the real substance of
your speech. Think about trying to organize it into three
to five main points at the most. Each main point should
contain information, ideas, or facts that support or
explain it in further detail to your listeners. Once you
have fully communicated a main point, make a smooth
transition to your next main point.
Remember that good transitions are not just verbal. Make
sure to include physical movement. Slightly alter your
location or give an exaggerated gesture to mentally refocus
the audience.
After completing your last main point of the Body,
it’s time to move into the third and final component
of a great presentation – the Conclusion. And how do
you do that? Yes, one last transition.
You could say, “Now that I’ve completed the
main points of my presentation, I’d like to quickly
review them for you” or “In conclusion,
I’m going to summarize my main points that I’d
like you to remember”. Then briefly review each of
your main points with specifics.
And the second and final part of your Conclusion is called
the Tie In – this is like tying up a loose end for
listeners. The Tie In also makes it obvious to the
audience that the presentation is over.
There’s nothing worse or more awkward than a
presenter who ends a speech suddenly or abruptly without
giving the listeners notice that they are finished.
The Tie In can be very creative or you can simply refer
back to how the speech started. You might say, “When
I began this presentation with the joke about the elephant,
you may not have understood where I was going. But now I
hope that you understand much more about each of our roles
as it relates to Customer Service – I appreciate your
attention today.”
Here’s another example, “I started off with
some startling statistics about forklift safety, it’s
my sincere hope that the information I’ve given you
will help insure that you are never involved in a forklift
accident – thanks for your time.”
If it’s your intent for listeners to ask questions or
participate, this is the time to say, “Does anyone
have any questions I can answer or concerns that I can try
to address before we end?”
Asking for participation is always a great way to make a
presentation more memorable, and allows you to understand
where you may have confused people or not communicated as
thoroughly as you had intended.
It’s a reality that even in the most stellar
presentations, the typical audience may only absorb 50% of
what a speaker says. So presenters have lots of challenges
to overcome to insure that their message is really heard!
----------------------------------------------------
Laura Adams is the host of the popular MBA Working Girl
Podcast. The content combines brainy business school theory
with real-world business practice from her career as a
business owner, manager, consultant and trainer. Subscribe
for FREE to this top-rated show and get the useful MBA
Essential Tip at
http://www.mbaworkinggirl.com
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