Despite the popularity of blogs, most of our communication involves speaking.
That speaking is important. It is how we interact with others in real-time. And researchers have found how you sound is the largest determinate of status in the United States. It’s not money. It’s not how well you “dress for success.” It’s not about who your father was. It’s not about who you can brag about knowing.
People determine your status by how you talk. Grammar, word usage, pace, pitch, language register, etc.
We have all heard that fear of public speaking is even greater than fear of falling or even fear of death. But we all speak in public daily, and not just when we are on a platform with a microphone. We are speaking in public when we answer a teacher’s question in a classroom. We are speaking in public when we pray in our Sunday School class. We are speaking in public when we have lunch with friends at a restaurant. The scenarios are endless.
Here are some tips that will make your public speech more effective.
Talk slowly.
Keep the pace down. Powerful people don’t need to rush. They don’t need to get a lot of information across quickly. The phrase fast talker, meaning a con man, did not arise at random.
This is especially important everywhere outside of the northeastern U.S. There was a company in Texas where several women were employed as buyers, placing telephone orders with vendors all over the U.S. They only allowed a certain buyer to talk with vendors in the North East, because the fast speaking Yankees would reduce the other buyers to tears in two sentences.
Start with a long pause.
The longer, the better. People will start to pay attention. They will wonder what you are up to. Look around the room, just like the Lion King looked over his audience. Look over their heads to the back of the room, then may eye contact with some individuals. Don’t shuffle papers. You own this conversation.
Pause for emphasis
In the same manner, pause in mid-sentence for emphasis. The longer the pause, the more powerful the emphasis. The greatest speakers do this. Listen to Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. Listen to JFK’s inaugural address. Listen to Franklin Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy address.
Watch Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech;
In fact, listen to the Top 100 American Speeches. They all use lots of pauses…long pauses.
Use a Script Instead of Notes.
No! Say it isn’t true. Every speech teacher since William Jennings Bryan have taught us that we should rehearse and rehearse and then speak from the heart, using only notes and to never use a script.
But if you have the time and the speech is important, go ahead and use a word-by-word script. But, here is the key (pause here.) Break the script into short sound bites. Then, as you speak, pause. During the pause, glance down at the script and memorize the next sound bite. Then, look up, reconnect with your audience, and say the words.
The pause is the important part. Read to yourself during the pause. Do not speak while reading. Do not read while speaking. The audience will not even know you are reading the speech.
The effect is dramatic.
Use lists
For some reason, we tend to respond to lists. They give the impression of organization and prior thought. They make you sound like an expert.
Lists of 3 items are common.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” – Lincoln
“Where the strong are just, and the weak secure and the peace preserved” – JFK again
Barak Obama, no slouch at speechmaking, had twenty-nine 3-part lists in his 10 minute victory speech in Chicago.
Use gestures
Gestures provide emphasis and focus attention.
Counting off the items on your list (see above) on your fingers drives home the point that you know what you are talking about.
Make contrasts
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” was a JFK favorite. His inaugural speech had a contrast every 39 seconds.
Combine the lists with contrasts
JFK again, “Not because the communists are doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right”
These techniques are easy. Once you learn them, they will come automatically.
The world will count you as an expert public speaker.