If you speak long enough to groups in-person or on TV or radio, you are likely to offend somebody seriously. If you are on a TV or radio show that has a call-in format, you might be called a fascist or a communist, simply for expressing a mild preference for a mainstream political figure. If you are giving a speech, someone in the audience may ask you a threatening question, or worse, try to shout you down.
I was recently at a convention for professional communicators and public relations people. All of the speakers and all of the attendees were in the business of communicating messages well—and getting paid for it.
And yet I was struck by how many speakers seemingly didn’t care if their audience could even see them. One speaker had recently gone through leg surgery and didn’t want to stand for his hour long presentation—understandably. But, he then proceeded to sit down behind a table from a position that was impossible to see by one third of the audience because he was hidden by a large wooden lectern.
One of the fascinating things about making in-person or media presentations is that you never know when something that seems destined for failure becomes a hit. In 2005 there was a book climbing the best-seller lists entitled “On Bullsh#$†by Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt.
The book’s success is surprising at many levels. It was supposed to fail for the following reasons:
When I flick through my 1000 plus channels of digital cable TV I am often struck by the fact that there are entire networks devoted to poker skills, golf skills, gardening skills, even tile grouting skills! And yet there is no TV network devoted entirely to presentation skills.
Why?
Relatively few people provide food and shelter for their family via their poker earnings, and yet hundreds of millions of people earn all or a majority of their paycheck based on their ability to speak. People in the following professions are highly dependent on their capacity to communicate through the spoken word:
Conventional wisdom says that the need for traditional public speaking skills will decrease because of the following trends:
1. More people will work at home so information will be passed along though email and phone calls, not formal presentations.
2. With a rise in terrorism and fuel prices, business people will travel less to professional conferences; therefore there will be fewer speaking opportunities.
3. More and more of the business world is migrating more of its functions to the Internet. And, as we all know, the web is made up mostly of pages of text.
by TJ Walker & Jess Todtfeld
You’re about to give a speech in front of a room full of people…
Maybe you’re about to be interviewed? Maybe you’re arriving at a cocktail party and have to make small talk? Suddenly, your heart starts to pound. Your breathing becomes rapid and shallow. Your sweat glands go into overdrive. Your body is sending you signs that any of these forms of public speaking are not for you. What do you do? One of the typical responses is to shut down or flee. Thankfully, there is help.
Transitional sentences and paragraphs are keenly important in the written word. Novels, short stories and magazine articles need smooth transitions in order to keep the reader captivated.
But what about speeches?
In my experience, many public speakers worry needlessly about finding the perfect transition sentences leading them from one message point to another. This is unnecessary because the spoken word is not absorbed by listeners in the same way the written word is by readers. If you don’t believe me then try to remember the last really interesting conversation you had with a friend or collage. Was every message in the conversation transitioned to perfectly? Of course not. Chances are you both jumped around as ideas came to your head.
On no! You have to give a big speech on major trends facing your business and industry to a large group of important people tomorrow! In less than 24 hours! And you haven’t started preparing yet.
What do you do?
Step one. Spend one hour with a colleague or two brainstorming major themes and ideas you’d like to discuss. Try to write down as many themes as you can in one sentence or less. Don’t debate these themes and don’t flesh them out. Don’t analyze or criticize. Just blurt out and write down as many interesting ideas you can think of that relate to your area of expertise and that would also be of interest to your audience.
Question 1. (Stated) “What do you do?â€
Question 2. (Thought, but not stated) “Why should I trust you?â€
So many entrepreneurs fail because they answer the first question, but they don’t have an answer to the second, unstated question. For many professionals, their credentials speak for themselves.
It’s fine to use notes and outlines when you are giving a speech—in fact I encourage people to do so. But the less noticeable your notes are to your audience, the better.