Great Speaking Coach

Public Speaking Tips to Overcome the "Um"

I wanted to scream 'stop' and push my fingers into my ears! Why? Because the speaker uttered “um” accompanied by a tsking sound after every three syllables, and it was a twenty minute speech. At a rate of 6 seconds per three syllables, that means he “um”-ed and tsked 200 hundred times in twenty minutes.

When you are asking an audience to listen to you, you must have enough discipline to rid yourself of the “um.” Nothing you say will be elevated in importance over the irritation of this audible tic.

How do you eliminate this terrible and unacceptable utterance? Three steps will help:

1)      Know your material. This seems so obvious, yet so many people tell me they throw something together an hour before their presentation. If you have any presentation deficiencies, they will always be magnified when you don’t know your material for this speech cold

2)      Practice your presentation out loud. Running through the content in your mind is not the same. Speaking out loud allows you to hear yourself and you will hear your “ums” and other irritating audibles.

3)      Make yourself substitute a silent pause when you hear yourself utter the “um.” It will take several tries to make the substitution naturally but it is worth it to take the time for this.

How do you learn to eliminate the "um" and "you know" when you speak? Share your ideas by clicking on the comment link. 

Business Stories Create Memories That Last

Make it easy for your audience to remember what you said--say it over and over, in ways that have meaning to the brain. How do you do this? In two words--tell stories.

Stories come from the words, sounds, and multi media choices you make.

Words should be put together in a way that stimulates images and emotions in the listener. Use colorful word combinations, let yourself go with analogies and metaphors, try a few long words that sound great rolling off the tongue. Ask the audience to take a journey with you: "Imagine; You would have loved it; You should have been there; Did you ever...?" You'll capture the emotional and creative part of the brain, and get your audience to think actively rather than to be passive listeners.

Sounds generate emotional responsiveness too. When you vary the sound of your voice, such as interjecting an unexpected shout or a softly spoken phrase, incorporating variety in the speed or pace of your speaking, and using questions instead of statements from time to time, the audience will recognize that the moment is new and will pay more attention.

Presentation technology plays a huge part of many presentations. Get out of the rut with innovative uses of multi-media. Think there's nothing new under the technology sun these days? Of course there is--what's new is that it's YOU who are using it, so make it fresh--your own photos and videos, blank screens, one word, a non-template driven look, no bullets and outlines. Imagine this: you've planned to introduce a scene of your story with a loud shout, and you could accompany that vocal effect with a visual one, say a quick video of an explosion or a lightning storm.

Your goal is to get people in the audience to remember the "storm story" or the "travel story" or whatever, long after the speech is past. Even if they can't recall the details of your facts and logic, if they remember the experience of the speech, they will also behave differently in some way. And that makes the time they spent listening to you worth every minute.

Your thoughts and differences of opinion are welcome through our comment link.

Make it easy for your audience to remember what you said--say it over and over, in ways that have meaning to the brain. How do you do this? In two words--tell stories.

Stories come from the words, sounds, and multi media choices you make.

Words should be put together in a way that stimulates images and emotions in the listener. Use colorful word combinations, let yourself go with analogies and metaphors, try a few long words that sound great rolling off the tongue. Ask the audience to take a journey with you: "Imagine; You would have loved it; You should have been there; Did you ever...?" You'll capture the emotional and creative part of the brain, and get your audience to think actively rather than to be passive listeners.

Sounds generate emotional responsiveness too. When you vary the sound of your voice, such as interjecting an unexpected shout or a softly spoken phrase, incorporating variety in the speed or pace of your speaking, and using questions instead of statements from time to time, the audience will recognize that the moment is new and will pay more attention.

Presentation technology plays a huge part of many presentations. Get out of the rut with innovative uses of multi-media. Think there's nothing new under the technology sun these days? Of course there is--what's new is that it's YOU who are using it, so make it fresh--your own photos and videos, blank screens, one word, a non-template driven look, no bullets and outlines. Imagine this: you've planned to introduce a scene of your story with a loud shout, and you could accompany that vocal effect with a visual one, say a quick video of an explosion or a lightning storm.

Your goal is to get people in the audience to remember the "storm story" or the "travel story" or whatever, long after the speech is past. Even if they can't recall the details of your facts and logic, if they remember the experience of the speech, they will also behave differently in some way. And that makes the time they spent listening to you worth every minute.

Your thoughts and differences of opinion are welcome through our comment link.

Persuasive Sales and Executive Presentations

It's a new world out there and in ways you'd never expect. The old key to persuasion is showing how other products or services pale in comparison to yours. The typical persuasive speaker cites the problems with the current situation, and then offers a glowing picture of results that come from adopting the new attiudes and beliefs or buying the product or service.

Modern findings reveal that this persuasive speaking pattern delivers the opposite results. Studies have shown that every time a con (as in pros and cons), myth or other negative idea is repeated, it becomes strengthened rather than weakened. This is the finding of  social psychologist Norbert Schwartz (University of Michigan). If not persuasion, then what? How does an executive, sales professional or manager win converts to their point of view?

It's helpful to understand this phenomenom in order to respond to it. The research shows that repetition seems to be key. What is repeated is remembered, and, according to the findings, the brain has an interesting rule of thumb: things that are easily recalled are true.

When you're the persuasive speaker, focus on what you want your audience to remember--the benefits of your approach or product or service. Make these benefits easy to recall by incorporating them into colorful stories that reflect the way your audience thinks.

Share your most effective persuasion technqiue. Post your ideas on our comment link.

Public Speaking --3 Steps to Make You Great

Music fills your ears, great visuals penetrate your brain, and you are captivated. You experience this with famous professional presenters at flashy conventions but how often are you transported like this when a business speaker is in front of the room?  Person after person tells me--business speakers are so boring.

Business speakers can provide a similar experience to their audiences a lot more easily than they think. Business speakers and their peers, superiors and kibitzers need to rip these words from their vocabulary: "we always do it that way." That's simply not a good enough reason to subject the audience to death by power point or bore them to tears.

I challenge you to do these three things the very next time you prepare a slide deck:

1. Put the company logo in one spot on each slide and that's it--no template with banners and slide titles
2. Use photo images to remind you of your speaking content, but few or no bullets. (Who are the bullets really for, anyway?)
3. build in some blank slides or use the toggle off key so there are times during your presentation when there is nothing on the screen.

When you've done this, let me know how it went. How did you feel when you prepared this way? How did these three things affect what you said and how you said it? What did the audience say to you afterwards? Post your comment through our link below.