Public Speaking: Using Your Voice, Pt. 3

We’re down to the final post discussing using your voice.  Today we’ll be touching on a couple things that you should work on to hold the interest of your audience.

While I can speak on a variety of topics, even those I may have to research because I don’t have a lot of direct experience, in general the best sessions I’ve had have always been those where I thoroughly understood and enjoyed my topic.  Having a level of familiarity enables you to bring a great deal of enthusiasm to your discussion.  Enthusiasm motivates your audience and keeps their attention.

It’s not enough to have useful information; a dry or monotone delivery will really prevent your listeners from taking anything useful away from the session.  An enthusiastic delivery, where you clearly believe in what your talking about and can transmit your conviction of how useful the information is will make the main points stick in the minds of your audience and they’ll remember what you had to say.

As yourself some questions – why do my listeners need to know about this topic?  What will they gain, and how can you best present it to highlight the benefits?

Remember that enthusiasm is contagious, and if you can get your excitement on your subject across to your audience they’ll pick up on it and it will help them remember and use what they’re hearing.

Finally, try to relax and have a conversation with your audience.  Think about how relaxed you are when you meet with friends or business acquaintances; how you speak with them is not stilted or dogmatic, but easy and spontaneous.  That should be a goal for speaking in public as well, developing a conversational speaking style.

A caveat is you need to know your audience – in some cultures you need to at least start off formally, get the necessary cultural obligations out of the way.  But once you have established a rapport, moving to a casual approach can help put your audience at ease.

Don’t fall back on slang or shorthand; one way to make sure you speak well is to try and speak well all the time – use proper grammar, enunciation, and pay attention to phrasing.  How often have you heard a speaker insert the works, ‘you know’ or ‘like’ or even ‘ummm?’  Too much can become distracting – I’ve even had meetings where I started counting how many times these repetitive words were used! (I recall one meeting where the phrase ‘you know’ was used almost 90 times in a 30 minute discussion! Three times a minute! What do you think the listeners remember most about that meeting?)  The point is, you may have to work on your everyday speech, and taking care every day will make you a better speaker overall.

Hopefully the last few blogs have helped with some ideas on how to improve using your voice.  Next we’re going to look at how you physically carry yourself, things you can do with your posture or appearance to improve your listener’s experience.