� � � 1 Ace that presentation How to define, di ff erentiate and distinguish yourself This was a breakthrough for me. Even though I felt I “ was quite a good presenter before, the improvement was dramatic.” Your workshop has been the most useful workshop “ for me so far in my professional life. Previously, I became paralyzed when asked to speak publicly.”
� � � 2 Let’s start o ff with six quick tips to help you ace your next big presentation or speech. 1. Be yourself. Don’t hide behind big words, or behind a persona you think the audience wants. Don’t use gestures that are foreign to you. Don’t try to use words that you would never use in conversation with a friend. 2. Be passionate. Be comfortable displaying your passion. Passion engages and inspires your audience. 3. Be focused. Don’t try to cover HALINA ST JAMES. too much ground or cram your Founder of Podium Coaching and presentation with information. creator of TalkItOut™ For your audience to receive a clear message, you have to be clear about the message you their attention to a point you’re want them to get. about to make. 6. Be a storyteller. Stories define 4. Be clear. Use simple words in us, inspire us, comfort us and simple sentences. The simpler teach us. Well-chosen and well- you are, the more powerful you told stories resonate with are. Simple words guarantee di ff erent audiences in di ff erent clarity and ensure your ways. The magic of story is that message sticks. it prompts us to respond ‘that 5. Be engaging. You need to could be me’. Facts tell, stories pause for the audience to sell. reflect on what you say and for dramatic e ff ect or emphasis. A Now let’s dig a little deeper. strategic pause is a great way to let the audience reflect on Halina St James the point you made, or draw
� � � 3 1 Our communication mantra It all comes down to this • Have something to say • Believe in it • Say it simply • Shut up Let’s look at those elements. Have something to say This is harder than it sounds. Think o f s o m e s p e e c h e s a n d presentations you’ve listened to. They are like a journey into the unknown. You have no idea what the speaker wants you to take away from the session. And sometimes it seems the speaker doesn’t know what the express what you are all about in destination is, either. ten seconds? Having something to say means That’s 30 words. That’s one long focusing your ideas. Really sentence or two short sentences. focusing. Think about your own You must find that defining business or organization. Can you sentence at the outset.
� � � 4 Believe in it You have to believe in what you are selling - whether it’s a product or a philosophy. Your passion is your strongest tool as a speaker. But it involves figuring out a few other things - like knowing your core values. We’ll come back to that later It involves knowing your audience - and figuring out what YOU want THEM to do di ff erently because of your presentation. Say it simply Simple, everyday words are vital if you want to be a powerful speaker. “Less is always more. The best language is silence. We Later we’ll look at what I call live in a time of a terrible message inflation: the more inflation of words important the message the more Eduardo Galeano (above) we try to dress it up in fancy language. “Be sincere, be brief, be seated” Shut up Franklin D Roosevelt An awful lot of problems in “Let thy speech be better speeches and interviews happen than silence, or be silent.” because we forget to shut up. We Dionysus like to o ff er a little more, so we elaborate - and in that elaboration lies disaster.
� � � 5 2 Stop writing; start talking A lot of people - most people in my experience - prepare a speech like our friend on the right. • They sit in silence at a keyboard • Think of words • Brain sends message to fingers • Fingers tap keys • Words appear on screen • Eyes evaluate words on screen, and send message back to brain • Brain processes data and sends message to fingers to change words. What’s missing? Two vital absolutely organs don’t get a look-in during this critical process. The mouth and the ears. You’re not supposed to be writing to your audience. You are supposed to be speaking to them. But if you prepare like this - in silence, thinking great thoughts quietly - your speeches will almost always su ff er. You’ll be reading at the audience. You see, we all use two vocabularies.
� � � 6 There’s the one we use in conversation: • Simple words • Short sentences • Sometimes not even sentences • Just fragments • Very direct And the words slide easily o ff the tongue And then there’s the vocabulary we use when we are writing: • Bigger words • More syllables • More complex sentences • More subordinate clauses When we are in ‘writing’ mode, seeing words rather than hearing them, our style changes. Generally, sentences get longer. We slip in more subordinate clauses, those pesky little thoughts in parentheses (a word we rarely use in a chat). We worry about repeating a word, so we start looking for synonyms - and before you know it a simple fire has turned into a blaze, and the blaze has turned in to a conflagration, and the conflagration has become an inferno. The other thing we do in writing mode is inflate our words. When we write we reach for some of those words o ff the top shelf that we seldom use in conversation (like parentheses, and conflagration). Before you know it we are writing: ‘High ‐ quality learning environments are a necessary precondition for facilitation and enhancement of the ongoing learning process'
� � � 7 when we really mean something like: ‘Kids need good schools if they are to thrive’ Sometimes, in ‘writing’ mode, we play tricks with our sentences - like inverting them. Originally from England, Bill has called Nova Scotia home for 25 years. In print, the inverted sentence is common - and works well. But we rarely use it in conversation. We’re more likely to say: Bill was born in England. But Nova Scotia has been his home for 25 years.’ Our TalkitOut™ technique is about talking the words on to the page. Speaking them out loud before you write them out. It’s you rehearsing a conversation with the audience, rather than writing an essay. It takes discipline. It’s easy to ‘think’ the word out loud, or to mumble it under your breath. That helps, of course. But it’s not as good as actually speaking the word out in the same voice you will use to the audience. When you speak out a word, phrase or sentence you are testing its usability. You are checking that it’s easy to say. ‘Indomitable’ looks like a good word on paper. But if it comes out as ‘indomitabubble’ you probably want to change it to ‘strong’ or ‘brave’ or ‘steadfast’. TalkitOut ensures that you make the discovery in the preparation stage, rather than introducing 300 strangers to ‘indomitabubble’.
� � � 8 3 Introduction to TalkItOut ™ So the first big tip is this: if you are preparing a speech or presentation, get in the habit of talking it out. Say the words - try the words - before you write them down. The second big tip is this: Set the words out di ff erently on the page. Let me show you what I mean. If I was preparing a speech about Talkitout using the conventional way of setting out the script, it might look like this: TalkitOut is about talking the words on to the page. Speaking them out loud (really speaking them, not just thinking them) before you write them out. When you speak out a word, phrase or sentence you are testing its usability. Try it. See how easily it slides off the tongue. Change it if necessary. Then - and only then - write it. Using the Talkitout™ Technique, I would set out the speech very di ff erently: TalkitOut is about talking the words on to the page. Speaking them out loud (really speaking them, not just thinking them). Saying them
� � � 9 before writing them . When you speak out a word, phrase or sentence you are testing its usability . Try it. See how easily it slides off the tongue. Change it if necessary. Then - and only then - write it. The first, conventional, version looks like a paragraph from a book. It’s really hard to lift those words o ff that page with feeling. And if the sentences are long you are trying to figure out where you get to breathe, rather than concentrating on helping the audience understand the meaning. The second version, using TalkitOut™, is much easier to perform. It’s much easier to see where to put emphasis. You can put key words and phrases in bold to help get the meaning over clearly and strongly. And did you notice that I changed the words slightly between the two versions. The phrase Speaking them out loud (really speaking them, not just thinking them) before you write them out doesn’t flow o ff the tongue. The thought in parentheses gets in the way. It may work on paper, but it feels clunky when I try to speak it. So it has to be changed.
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