A Presenter's Best Friend : The PAUSE

Amongst all the tools of effective presenting 'pauses' are the simplest, yet most effective way to demonstrate confidence and credibility in front of an audience.

Here are 8 ways to start mastering the use of pauses to lend even greater impact to your presentations...

Embracing the Power of the Pause

PAUSE immediately after announcing a topic title or key message - An audience needs time to 'process & absorb' the message or ideas behind the words they are hearing. Pauses allow them to think and better connect with the content.

PAUSE immediately after introducing a new visual or slide. Visuals momentarily over-ride the audiences auditory reception - whilst looking, there's less listening - so give them time to interpret what they are seeing before you move on.

PAUSE when you need to think about what you're going to say next - this allows time to process words in your mental buffer, before they're said out loud. This will allow you to tap into more expressive vocabulary and appear even more articulate to the audience

Deliberate silent pauses stop those annoying nervous " Err's & Um's" sneaking out when we are momentarily unsure of what we want to say. Waiting to speak, shows the audience that we are composed and confident.

PAUSE just before delivering a conclusion or outcome. The anticipation provoked by a break in the 'flow' of a sentence creates suspense and keeps the audience engaged in eager anticipated of the answer.

PAUSE to buy time, when you're not sure of the words or visuals that are about to follow.

The biggest confidence killer is the fear of forgetting our words or content. We sometimes run ahead of our words, thinking of what should be coming next - this can cause our word memory bank to empty too quickly - a pause gives the 'memory bank' time to refill with new words before it's completely empty.

PAUSE (in silence) to peek at your supporting notes. It's completely reasonable for a speaker to use a lengthy pause (up to 8 secs) to 'take on board' more content. Pausing alleviates the tendency to read our notes 'out loud' rather that engage with the audience. Watching the presenter read is boring and may start them questioning our subject knowledge and credibility.

PAUSE to look a supportive audience members, whose assuring response will build your confidence and morale. Knowing we've got a supporter in the audience has a calming effect that improves our delivery.

So, pausing is still sounding pretty easy - right ?...well, here's the most important and challenging pause of all ;

PAUSE to engage eye contact with the audience members. The prospect of looking into the eyes of our audience and feeling their judgement can be daunting - but it's essential...

The key objective of public speaking is to influence the thinking of our audience with an intention to educate, inform, convince and perhaps even inspire them to embrace our perspective.

The only way to know whether we are succeeding is to look them in the eye to see their response. If that scares you then remind yourself that the audience don't know what's going on in your head.

They can only read the expression on your face and your body language. It takes a little practice, but get used to being completely silent whilst roaming eye contact between audience members for 2-3 seconds at a time.

Keep a neutral expression, or even a gentle Mona Lisa-esque smile on your face.

PAUSES make us look confident. Nervous speakers hate silence because it gives them time for self-doubt and nurse suspicions that the audience are judging and questioning their credibility.

Self-Assured speakers dispel that thinking by using pauses that maintain silent, yet focused, attention on the audience to be able to assess their level of engagement and tweak their delivery accordingly.

This turns presenting into a 2-way communication between speaker & audience - the most powerful way to educate, convince & inspire.

If you would like to explore more tools of High Impact Presentation, why not join us at one of our workshops at XLR8 Training

In the meantime, go explore the Power of the Pause !... and if you got value from this post, please SHARE with your network.

Warm Regards, Hitesh Patel,

Founder & Coach @ XLR8 Training

www.XLR8training.com +44(0)7914 971 531