When you speak, you want the listener to receive your message as clearly and sticky as possible. If your message is clear and sticky, the purpose of the communication is achieved. In a sales situation, you will increase the chance of getting a sale. In a job interview, you improve the chance of winning the competition assuming your qualification and experience are very similar to the competitor. In a keynote presentation, you increase your influence over the audience.
To make your message clearer and stickers, use the following 10 biggest techniques when you speak.
1. Clear thinking
You must clear about what you want to say by summarizing it in one sentence, preferably fewer than 10 words. We can call it a foundational phase, a term coined by Craig Valentine, 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking. By craving out this foundational phase, it also helps you to focus on crafting the story or presentation around this phase.
One month ago, when I did a presentation in Toastmaster on persuading the audience to change the old habbit of doing bullet-point PowerPoint, I used the foundational phase of “Beyond bullet-points, go visual” before I crafted the 7 minute speech. Based on this phase, I come up with the whole speech very efficiently and effectively.
2. Clear structure
For clearer understanding by the audiences, what you say must adhere to clear structure as much as possible. This can only achieved by preparation. The most easy structure for communication anything is to state your premises in the very beginning. Then support your premises with reasons. These reasons can be in the form of stories, statistics, metaphors, etc. Summarize what you say and then use a strong close.
3. Memorable stories
Words do not stick in one’s mind while stories do. Use relevant stories as much as possible to support your points. Make a collection of your personal stories or stories you heard to use them in your future speaking opportunities.
4. Emotional connection
To create good emotional connection the audience is very important for making your message sticker in the listeners’ mind. To do this, we have to have an attitude of “What is in it for the audiences”. Almost use you-focus words in your speech. Instead of saying, “I’m going to talk about how to make a sales call”, you should say, “You’re going to learn the latest and best techniques of making a sales call”
5. Appropriate details
Stories without adequate details do not stick. To make a clearer message, appropriate details should be provided. In telling a story to support your point, give more details on the characters mentioned in the story will make the story sticker. Instead of saying a man about forty, better mentioning about he having a tall and slim figure and look like C Y Leung.
6. Pauses
If you rush on at full speed to crowd in as much information as possible, chances are you have left your listeners at the station. It is Okay to talk quickly, but pauses whether you say something profound or proactive. This gives the audience a chance to think about what you have said and to internalize it.
7. Unnecessary sounds
Hmm-ah-er-you know what I mean-. All these unnecessary sounds will tarnish your effectiveness in communicating your message. Pay close attention to these by recording your own speech. Eliminate the habits consciously. This may not be easy to totally eliminate the habit. However, paying close attention to the habit will certainly help you on the way to eliminate the habit totally as a final goal.
8. Punch words
For a stand-up comedian script, the most important words that audience laugh is the punch words. This is also the case for an ordinary speech. Carefully draft and rehearse the punch word to act the impact of your message.
In my last meeting of the Toastmaster, I was the toastmaster of the meeting. When I mentioned about the dropping of a speaker to do his prepared assignment, I use the following line, “In the last minute, the speaker finally give up on “Never give up”(the title of the speech)” This created a huge laughter.
9. Strong opening and closing
Start your speech with a strong opening and never close your speech with a question and answer session. You can take questions. However, you must end your speech with a strong closing after the Q&A session
10. Using technology
Powerpoint presentation will aid your presentation if use it in a wise way. The wise way definitely is not the traditional bullet-point way of using Powerpoint.
Below was the presentation I did in a Toastmaster meeting on “Beyond bullet-points, go visual”.
Below was the slide I used to complement the presentation I did in the above presentation. The animations and transitions that I built in the actual presentation file cannot be shown in the followling slideshare file.
You can also refer to my previous post on “Beyond bullet-points, go visual”.
