How To Not Be Crap At Public Speaking

How To Not Be Crap At Public Speaking

Recently I watched a friend do a presentation that turned into a car crash! He is world class in his field but he lost the audience, big time. People were too polite to leave but the tension in the air was awkward and not a single person in the room had any interest in his message.

Every joke was met with silence. It was painful!

He came to me afterwards and with raised eyebrows that acknowledged he stuffed it. He was no fool. He knew he had bombed. “Where did it go wrong? I must have missed something? What happened?” he asked me.

I probably didn’t realize how much I knew about presenting until I found myself rattling off my observations.

“Mate, you didn’t start your first story to the twelve minute mark. And prior to that you kept asking the audience questions or “Raise your had if… “. That sent you into ‘rapport debt’ as you hadn’t delivered any gold yet and you kept asking the audience to give you something. You have to deliver early. You have golden content yet you took 25 minutes to even brush on it? What were you doing?”

I continued on, not as a barrage of criticism but to answer his questions. He had been in front of a lot of warm audiencesrecently (someone had warmed them up before he got on, so they were more patient with his style).  As a result he had become soft, over confident and forgot that no matter how many times you have nailed a presentation in the past, it makes no difference to the people in front of you now. These people only care if you nail this one.

So for what it is worth, for those of you that are regular presenters and for those of you hope to do a better job with the intermittent opportunities that pop up at work or at family functions, here is my crash course in public speaking:

 

How To Open Your Presentation

There is no need to open with your bio or family photos. There is never any need to say “First a little bit about me”. That is not people’s first curiosity, so your intro will come across self-absorbed. What they want to work out first is if they like you. They want to know if they would get along with you outside of this environment. For that reason, open with either a legitimate compliment to the audience, or a short anecdote that puts you in a humble light. Tell them the time you slept walked into your parents dinner party, locked yourself out of the house in the rain or went to a function with your top on inside out. This is not to play small, it is so that people can relate to you. We all have a story like that and people appreciate the humility.

 

Earn Attention By Delivering Value Quickly

The more you win an audience, the easier it is to present. When they warm to you there is space to joke, make mistakes and also get more passionate and deeper into the topic. You win an audience by never wasting a moment of their time.

To do this you earn their attention in chunks. The first chunk is thirty to ninety seconds. In this chunk tell a story like I mentioned earlier or give content value that is legitimately helpful or insightful. If the audience like it they will then give you their full attention for the next chunk; a three to five minute one. And if you do a great job with that chunk they will give you their attention for a seven to ten minute chunk.

That’s the way you structure a presentation. In chunks that get bigger as the presentation goes on.

 

Use Stories… Especially If Presenting Data

People love a story and they will learn way more from the story than much else you will say. If you think you are losing an audience or you think that they are getting fatigued from long sessions in the day, tell a story. The human spirit always wants to know how stories end, even bad ones, so the story will hold their attention. Further, people remember stories far more than much else, so a story makes your content memorable.

That being said… tell a good story and tell it well. Just because your wife thinks it’s funny it does not mean that 300 bankers do. Just because you tell it all the time, doesn’t mean that people like it. They audience’s faces will always tell the truth; watch their faces.

 

Know Your Exit

You always need to know how you will finish your presentation so that you can finish strong. You never need to say “So I guess that is it them” or “We’ll if there are no questions I guess I will finish?” Instead have  a couple of pre-decided finishes that you can choose from to end with. These should be really strong pieces. Maybe a story, poem, quote or words you know so well that you won’t need to think to get it right. When these are done well, it becomes obvious to the audience that is it is time to clap.

Remember, audiences leave with the mood they finish with so make your close inspiring. Tell the audience they are awesome and encourage them to act on the ideas you have provoked. Make them feel awesome and you will have succeeded.

 

What About Getting Questions At The End?

If you do want questions at the end there are two very simple strategies.

1. Tell people at the start that you will take questions at the end. Seems obvious but most people don’t do this. Most people finish and then say “Does anyone have any questions?” which is followed by a long and awkward silence as people try to think of a question. They will then internally be assessing if their question is valuable to the whole room and then also be searching  for the guts to put their hand up. Instead, at the start and during the presentation let people know that question time is coming.

2. Leave gaps in your stories and content so that it provokes questions. If you tell a story about a sporting team, leave out who won. Or if you say you will give people the name of a book, deliberately forget. This creates opportunity for people to ask questions that are non threatening and it breaks the ‘question ice’. Don’t do this with the heart of your presentation. Do it with the details. It’s insulting to the audience to make them ask for the content you were meant to deliver. Leave gaps on details that are not crucial but are curious.

Oh and of course, if you love the audience, if you really care about their well being; they will return the favour.

There are certainly many more things required to master both the skill set and the mindset of public speaking, but this is essentially what I rattled off to my friend that day. After 25 years presenting I had thousand of strategies to offer, but in a nut shell, this is where to start.

End :)

PS. If this makes sense to you then come and enjoy an entire day of this stuff…  but with off-the-charts energy! This November 26th, I am presenting a full day for free. The day is called Live More and is a one day event to supercharge the areas of your life that will liberate the rest of it. As a reader you are welcome. Actually I would love to have you along!

For information and a free ticket the link is: www.dobbo.com.au/event

 

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