How Engaging Are You As A Speaker?

Did you know that your words are the least important part of your presentation?

Most of the time people don’t struggle as presenters because they don’t know their content, their business, or their topic.?

They struggle as presenters because they are not able to deliver their message in a clear, concise, and engaging way.

Are you the type of person who is more concerned with your words and big vocabulary to impress your listeners? If you are, then you need to discover how to connect with them through your delivery and performance. Of course, your content needs to be good, but if you can’t deliver your message effectively – it’s worthless.

I recently mentored a senior level executive of a well known multinational company. He was interested to develop his effective speaking skills, but contrary to this, he told me public speaking was not really his issue. He was well practiced in presenting. However, it was very quickly clear, that when speaking he was not able to convince and inspire his listeners. His message would be unclear, he’d lose focus, ramble and even come across as nervous.

How can you improve your ability to keep your focus, inspire confidence and keep your message clear, concise, and compelling? This is one of the most common challenges people face and request assistance with.

Everyone wants to be a confident, charismatic speaker.

#1 Learn to chunk your content

One of the things I teach my clients early on is to learn to break their content down into smaller pieces of information. If you have a long speech or presentation to deliver, it will be much harder to stay fully focused and on point if you feel you have to remember everything from start to finish that you want to share with your listeners in one big block of content. That’s where people get overwhelmed, nervous and lose their train of thought.

I teach my clients to break their content down into smaller themes or chunks. You are a master of your own subject matter. If you learn to keep each section separate, you will make it easier for the listeners to absorb and easier for you to deliver.

Not only that, but your performance will also be more impactful.

#2 Speak in soundbites

Learn to speak in shorter phrases and breathe when you speak. This may sound strange, as you are probably thinking, I breathe all the time. But when you are speaking, you may find you push your breath too far, join sentences together with ands, so, well, without stopping, pausing, breathing, and taking a break. Your breath can even compliment and help emphasise your message if you learn to use it effectively.

#3 Master reflexive diaphragmatic breathing technique

Mastering diaphragmatic breathing, will help you to speak more clearly, in concise phrases, with more energy and it will help to keep you calm and your thoughts clear.

Ultimately, breathing can be a major player in developing your skills to speak as a clear, confident and compelling speaker.?

#4 Eliminate the fluff

Rambling is a common problem. If you have the opportunity and plenty of preparation time, I encourage you to write down what you intend to say, crafting your language. This helps you to get your thoughts and language clear on how you intend to deliver. Of course, you will never deliver a speech memorised word for word, or at least I hope not (unless you are Simon Sinok)! But the more comfortable you are with your message, the easier it will flow even in the most stressful situations. Crafting your message, also helps you eliminate the unnecessary fluff and stick to the important points.

#5 Respect the pause

Have you ever heard the saying silence is golden? When you are speaking to an audience, you may not feel that. In fact you may feel extremely uncomfortable with silence. That’s one of the reasons why many people fill space with umms, aghs, erghs, you knows and so many other ugly sounds, because they are afraid of the silence.

Silence can give you an opportunity to breathe, think, focus, emphasise and create a moment.

Silence can give your listeners an opportunity to absorb, retain, connect, anticipate, and increase their hunger for more.

In short, learning to speak powerfully can be trained, developed and improved with practise. If you would like to find out more about how I can help you become an engaging speaker, get in touch today.

Read more blog articles or enquire about Lisa's coaching at www.lisa-hugo.com