As small business owners, we are often called on to speak publicly, and like most people, find that intimidating, and for some uncomfortable to the point of nausea.
There are many pieces of advice on how to structure a presentation, thousands of them on the web, and a few contributions from this site, but little about ‘how’ to speak beyond the very good advice on body language.
For most the degree of discomfort is brought on by fear.
Fear of making a dill of yourself
Fear of forgetting the important bits
Fear of boring your audience.
All can be addressed using a few simple things, that will not remove the instinctive fear of being the one outside the herd that in evolutionary times became a tigers breakfast, but at least will give you a few tools to beat the beast off.
Do not repeat to them what they already know.
Most speakers just repeat lots of stuff in the public domain, things most already know, or they pimp their companies and products.
Both are as boring as batshit.
You have been given the privilege of controlling the time of others, and the status of expert by whoever is organising the event you are speaking at, do not waste it by repeating boring stuff. Even if all you do is reverse the usually quoted factoids, and adding a bit, it will be more interesting. For example, instead of just stating ‘8% of transactions are now carried out ‘on line’, say ‘while 92% of transactions are still carried out in person, 75% of purchasers do extensive research on line before you see them in the shop. How should that impact on your marketing strategies?’
Do not speak about things where you have only superficial knowledge.
Tempting as it is for some of us to speak at the opening of an envelope, resist the temptation unless you can genuinely impart some relevant and useful knowledge to the audience. Knowing you have valuable information that others will benefit from makes the process of imparting it that much easier.
Do not read to them what they can see.
Reading slides back to an audience is an absolutely sure fire way to ensure they all dive for their phones to check the Facebook update or what their mother in law is doing for dinner. I cannot believe how often I see this, we have all seen it, yet many allow themselves to knowingly bore the pants off the audience by doing it themselves. It is simply a response to fear, we can wrap ourselves in a sheet that excludes others, removing the presentation obligation to ‘connect’ with the audience.
PowerPoint has destroyed our instinct to be interesting when we speak, to hold the audience’s attention.
Resist the siren song of PowerPoint. When you use it, which is in most cases, always use it as no more than a memory jogger and to keep you moving along to a plan by having no more than a couple of words on a slide, but using it as a way to communicate in simple graphic manner the point that you are currently making. If you cannot condense that part of the discussion to a single graphical representation, remove the whole thing.
Do not just give them your opinion.
An expert speaker always has a point of view, but to be truly persuasive, that point of view will be based on solid facts, research, and data. Deliver that data, while articulating how you used it to form the views you have. Demonstrate the links between cause and effect. Failure to do this effectively is a large part of why we no longer trust politicians. While they are often slick talkers, they just give us opinions, and mostly we know they are not their private opinions, just the convenient line of the day, without any foundation of relevant fact and cause and effect links.
Do not stand still.
Particularly, do not stand still behind a lectern. When speaking, the stage is your domain, dominate it by moving around, using it to make your points, engage with the audience, match your voice to the point you are making, and be interesting physically. Back to evolutionary psychology, the tiger will have less chance at breakfast if the target is moving, so move!
Do not just recite, tell stories.
Imagine your audience is one of your kids to whom you are telling a bed-time story, and you want more than anything for it to be memorable for them. To be memorable, every story has a structure. A beginning, an end, and a middle bit, drama, tension, villains, heroes, laughter and sadness, suspense, and a point that you are trying to make. Use as many of them as possible in your presentation, with particular attention to the point to be made.
Do not end with thank you for coming.
You have been given the status of expert, someone worth listening to, by whoever has organised the gathering. Do not surrender that status by thanking the audience for all being there, for their attention. Instead, demonstrate why the investment of their time has been worthwhile, by telling them what to do next.
When you manage all that, I guarantee that not only will you have been of benefit to the audience, you will probably have enjoyed the experience, at least just a bit, and you will be better for the practice next time.
