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About to Have a Speech?
Easy Tips with Lots of Examples on How to Use Them!
If you have read the first article on public speaking about how to overcome the stage freight, it’s time to get a bit more practical. Before we do so, I’d like to tell you that in one of my future posts, I’ll share with you some hands-on techniques, based on neurolinguistic programming (NLP), which you can use to beat the stage freight better and easier.
1. Don’t Apologize!
Let’s talk about what you do when you get on the stage. One of the worst things to begin with is to apologize. About anything. If you are holding a speech or a presentation in a foreign language people may start like:
»I haven’t practised (English, Japanese …) for a while, so I’m a bit rusty. I hope you’ll understand anyway …!«
The sentence above is actually a double mistake. It’s an apology and a joke. Could it possibly be worse than that?
What about: »It is my best intention today to tell you about …« No, I’m sorry, this sounds as an apology as well. Don’t do it.
2. Tell Your Audience About the Questions!
We spoke in the earlier post on public speaking about Q&A session. This is not what I’m talking about right now. I’m referring to how to deal and answer questions, which come from your audience while you’re speaking.
If your speech is good, the audience will follow it eagerly and will tend to ask questions. This is what you want. At the right moment, of course. My suggestion therefore is to allow questions, which clarify misunderstandings:
»Did you say ninety percent or nineteen?«
Content-related questions, especially the ones, which might provoke a longish or heated discussion are better left for Q&A session:
»Mojca, just a moment. You said that … I heard in another seminar that … Can you comment on that?«
Of course I can comment on it and I always do. So in situations such as this one, my reply might be:
»I expected a question such as yours. Why don’t I put it down and we’ll talk about it during Q&A session. Is that OK with you?«
3. Add to Your Style.
Read the tips below to sound more interesting, to engage your audience better in what you’re doing and to have more success with your performance:
a) Rhetorical Questions
These are questions, which do not expect to be answered. Such a question rather invites the audience to fill in an obvious answer (Who could have possibly done the job better?) or provokes a thought (And if not now, then when?).
You can also use them to:
- to present your idea:
- This is the third year in a row that we’ve managed to increase our sales volume. So, how did we do it?
- Business opportunities on the Balkans are growing.
- So, what do you need to know to do business with them?
- The fact is that we’ve been slacking off. Our products are becoming less competitive. What’s the way out? The way out is to launch a new product.
- to add emotions
- The question is: »How small, specifically, IS the risk?«
- So, just how convinced AM I that we can do it?
b) Dramatic Contrasts
In early seventies this was just a swamp.
Today, it’s one of the biggest and most successful entertainment centres in the world.
Public speaking is not about you.
Public speaking is about them.
c) Tripling
Three important points seem to be the most an audience can easily keep in their heads at one time.
- What are our retail stores known for? Better service, bigger discounts and – lower prices.
- What is this product about? It’s about being sexy, being flirty, being – a woman.
d) Machine-Gunning
Earlier I said that three points was the most an audience can comfortably remember. If you add one or two, they’ll forget some of them. But if you make six or seven or even eight, it’s true that noone will remember all of them. That’s not what you want to do. You simply want to impress and this is exactly the effect of machine-gunning.
We want to sell more, right? So why don’t we change the attitude about the female market? Let’t think of her as SENSUOUS, EMOTIONAL, COLOURFUL, CURVACEOUS, CARING, LOVING, POWERFUL, ASSERTIVE and UNIQUE creature of this world.
e) Simplification
It’s a kind of a general rule that the simpler you sound, the more impact you will have on your audience. What is also true is that using deliberately short sentences will have an extremely powerful effect on your audience.
Compare:
Long:
Should we reorganize the distribution completely at this point? I fear it wouldn’t work, because we don’t have enough time.
Simplified:
Reorganize distribution? Wouldn’t work. No time.
4. Focus Your Conclusion on Pathos
The conclusion of your speech (peroratio) does not conclude any new information, which might just confuse your listeners shortly before you leave the stage. It rather sums up and makes a final plea to the audience, asking them for the agreement. It usually focuses on pathos (makes an emotional appeal).
This is how I ended my speech on one of the occasions, where I addressed the audience of chief training officers in a conference:
Although I live in Florence, Italy, I use a washing machine of Slovenian production, shop in Ikea, which was built by Trimo, a Slovenian construction company and share a glass of extraordinary white wine from northeast Slovenia with my father in law, a dedicated sommelier. He thinks it’s out of this world.
I am not only proud that we have the knowledge to produce, I am above all proud that we export it. With your help.
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