Starting this weekend PodiumWise will become a “speaking tips library” featuring the 130+ pieces of advice I posted over a sixteen-month period.  The directory that was just added will become the new home page.  You will be able to use it to quickly find tips by their original title.

I want to thank all my regular readers for checking in every Monday and Thursday for my latest message.  I have enjoyed sharing my experience as a speaking coach.  My hope is that you found many ideas helpful in your quest to be a stronger speaker.

My last piece of advice: Never stop improving.

There is no such thing as a perfect speaker.  There is always one more thing you can do to take it up another notch.  That’s what makes public speaking such a worthy challenge.

Public speaking builds careers in a way few other skill sets can.  The better you get at connecting with audiences the more success you will know.

My work continues as President of Steele Presentation Coaching.  I invite you to occasionally visit my site www.steelepresentationcoaching.com.  My plan is to periodically offer a free report on presenting that can be downloaded.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, consider ordering a copy of my book: Presentation Skills 201: How to Take it to the Next Level as Confident, Engaging Presenter.  It can be found at many on-line book sources including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Once again, thank you for reading my blog!

Sincerely,

Bill Steele

If they don’t agree with someone in their audience, they will look for some way to agree before disagreeing.

Let’s say, for example, an audience member declares that not enough is being done to protect a certain piece of the environment.  The politician will begin by agreeing that it is an important environmental concern and that the audience member is right for being concerned. Then, following these positive comments, the politician will go on to assert that the issue is being responsibly addressed and enough is being done (i.e., the audience member is wrong).

This saying “yes” before saying “no” softens the impact of the disagreement.  It’s a way of making the “no” easier to receive.

Consider this technique the next time you face a challenge from your audience.  Before you take issue with what the person has said, look for a way to agree on something first.  Do this even if your challenger was less than diplomatic.

At one point, I decided to take the qualities of a leader that all the gurus agreed were important and sort out the ones that were relevant to public speaking.

One quality on this short list was authenticity—or, if you prefer, realness.

A speaking leader can never afford to project a fake, plastic, or put-on image.

One way this happens is to treat public speaking too much like a performance.  Someone who has a tendency to do this will bound up to the podium thinking “It’s show time!”  They don’t just “turn it up” enough to project well to a large group; they turn it way up.

If their highly-animated delivery differs too much from their day-to-day personality, they risk being perceived as unreal and inauthentic.

I’ve heard it said that public speaking requires being “a bigger you.”  That’s a good way to think of it.  Dialed up for a room full of people, but still very much “you.”

A partner in this large accounting firm was presenting the details of a new, high-fee service he wanted the employees to promote when they were with clients.  He finished his message by excitedly declaring how much more money the partners would make if many of the firm’s clients signed up for the service.

What a crazy thing to talk about to a group of employees!  I am sure it would have been music to the ears of a room full of partners, but employees were guaranteed to react negatively.  In fact, the gentleman I was talking to said he walked out of that presentation determined not to promote the service with his clients.

Of course, this is an example of an over-the-top failure to think about who you are talking to when making a benefit statement, but I have heard many less dramatic examples.

It is common, for example, to hear middle managers telling senior managers that they should approve an initiative because it will make life easier for the middle managers.  It may sound like a reasonable thing to say, but a benefit statement is really only persuasive if it describes a benefit to the person being persuaded.  In other words, the senior managers need to hear what the benefit is to them—or, at least to the company as a whole (i.e., their responsibility).

A car salesman wouldn’t say “Buy this car and I will make a big commission.”  In the same way you shouldn’t stress to audience members the benefit you will get if they do what you propose.  You tell them what benefit(s) they will receive if they buy in to your message.

How do you jump around in your slide show in a smooth, professional way?

The answer is not what most presenters do.  They either tap the arrow keys repeatedly until they reach the slide they want or they call up the Slide Sorter view in PowerPoint and hunt around until they find the right slide to double-click.  Both of these methods are clunky.

You can go to any slide in PowerPoint by entering its number.  In other words, typing “17 + Enter” will take you directly to slide #17.

Or course, you’re thinking: “That’s fine, but I’m not inclined to memorize the numbers for all my slides.”  You don’t have to.

Before your presentation, go to Normal View in PowerPoint and select the Outline tab to the left.  Then collapse the outline down to just the headlines.  You do this by right-clicking on the outline and selecting Collapse All.  When you have just the headlines with the corresponding slide numbers, print a copy.

You can then take your printed sheet of the slide headlines in numbered order and lay it next to your laptop during the presentation.  A quick look down at this reference sheet will quickly tell you what slide number you need.

By using this technique you can effortlessly move around your deck as you answer questions and facilitate a discussion.

In fact, a speaker should not get into verbal fights.  It’s a no-win situation.  Regardless of the outcome, the speaker loses.

Obviously, if the audience member fights more effectively, the speaker loses.

But the speaker also loses if he or she verbally beats up the audience member.  The speaker looks like a bully and other audience members are troubled that one of their own was made to look bad.

Don’t worry about not being a good verbal fighter; it will just get you into trouble as a speaker.

The presenter was being told that he should only speak to some of the bullet points on his slides and let the audience members read the rest.  This was offered as a way to both avoid too much detail and to keep from speaking too long.

The whole problem with this often-given advice is that people cannot simultaneously concentrate on what a speaker is saying while processing slide content the speaker is not addressing.  They have to choose one or the other.  They can read the slide and tune out the speaker, or listen to the speaker and ignore the slide.

Forcing audience members into this dilemma causes frustration and, potentially, reduces their overall attention to both the speaker and the slides.

Slides do their job best when they visually support what is being said, not when they offer an alternative source of information.

Common answer: Speak on something you’re passionate about.

Sounds good.  But what if your audience members are not passionate about the same thing you are?  What if technology excites them and consumer behavior is your thing?  Will tapping your passion be enough?

It might be enough if a dynamic performance is your only goal.  But if successfully connecting with your audience members is also a priority (as it should be), their passion is equally as important—if not more.

The best speakers draw energy from their own passions but put the passions and interests of their audience members first.  If there’s a difference—even a large one—they strive to find a point of connection or intersection.  In my earlier example that might be the role of technology in gaining new and deeper understanding of consumer behavior.

Your passion alone is not enough.  Their passion is important too.

My experience tells me this isn’t true most of the time, but there are some people who really can deliver notably good talks with no apparent preparation.

The key word here is “apparent.”  They, in fact, do prepare and practice, but not for a specific speaking occasion.

These people prepare and practice by constantly talking about their ideas.  They talk about them in group meetings, telephone conversations, hallway conversations—anywhere they can get a hearing.  So, when they are asked to speak formally, they have, in fact, put in quite a bit of rehearsal time.  They just don’t realize it.

This informal, practice-anytime-anywhere approach is available to anyone.

It could just be that your key to more spontaneous eloquence is having more conversations about your ideas when you’re not scheduled to formally present them.

Let’s say you tell a story about someone being forgiven for something they did wrong.  Your intention is to communicate the power of forgiveness; however, many people in your audience think your main point was that certain crimes don’t deserve punishment.  Your story may have been engaging, but it failed to accomplish what you intended.

Even if the point of your story would seem to be obvious, say what it is anyway.  As you can see, forgiveness has the power to heal a broken relationship.

Don’t worry; a simple statement about the story’s point is not going to insult the intelligence of your audience members.  It’s just going to make sure you succeed in communicating what you intended to communicate.