Want to be a speaker who makes a difference in person or in virtual meetings? Here are 5 powerful tools for audience inspiration and motivation.
If your message matters, your presentation has to be memorable—whether you're speaking in person or online.
It’s as simple as that when it comes to influential speaking. And as challenging.
Yet how many of us business executives, salespeople, service providers, organizational leaders, health and pharma professionals, government staff, and the rest of us meet the burden of engaging and inspiring our audience?
Do you speak with that level of influence? Learn how it's done with my book, Speak for Leadership. On Amazon. Discover how to engage, persuade, and inspire any audience!
Think Different?...For Effective Speaking, Be Different!
The truth, of course, is that most speeches and presentations are exactly like all the others in that field. As speakers, we feel safe that way. Unfortunately, presentations like that condemn audiences to Presentation Purgatory. That's where PowerPoint is the usual instrument of torture and time stretches on to the crack of doom.
Please don't send your audiences there.
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How to Be an Original Public Speaker
If you have an important message (and if you don’t, why are you giving this presentation?), you must find a way to make your vital points stick in the minds of listeners. Another way to say this is: For your ideas to stand out, you must stand out.
Don’t be afraid to make a splash, to be different! Whether in advocacy, sales, or motivational speaking, breaking away from the pack can be tremendously helpful in making what you say stand out. And, of course, it can also be the fast track to promotion and career success.
Among other things, consider whether your voice has the sound of leadership! Download my Free Tips and Tricks Guide, "The Voice of Authority: How to Sound Like a Leader."
As the first steps along the road to inspiring listeners, below are 5 effective ways to be a more original speaker. I've developed these suggestions over many years as an actor and speech coach.
Try any of them the next time you're slated for a speech or presentation where you want to make an impression. (Note: you don't necessarily have to include all of them in the same presentation!)
Great speakers understand intuitively how to engage and move listeners. Get your copy of my Free Presenter's Guide, "The 6 Rules of Effective Public Speaking."
- Consider a different approach. Think about how this topic has been presented in the past. Why did previous speakers handle it that way? What advantages or disadvantages did those approaches have? If a previous approach wasn't particularly successful, can you try something different instead? How can you be an original presenter who taps into the particular strengths of public speaking?
- Try “suspending your expertise.” Imagine that you’re brand new to your business or field. Look at the problem from a neophyte’s point of view. Issues which were too close and familiar for you to see clearly may come sharply into focus for the first time. Doing or saying anything over and over again can make us appreciate what it means when we hear the phrase "familiarity breeds contempt." See with new eyes. Hear with new ears!
- Elicit audience responses. Come up with ways for audience members to respond. It doesn't matter if that empty moment is dead air or the dead vacuum of cyberspace—it's still something you don't want the audience to experience. If increasing responsiveness between you and listeners is a revolutionary concept for you . . . then revolt! This very moment, for instance, there are millions of people around the world who are hoping that this Zoom meeting will be a bit more engaging where they as listeners are concerned.
- Live in your audience's world. Here's an opportunity to change your entire mindset concerning how to be an effective speaker. All of us are guilty of being "speaker-centric," i.e., thinking about ourselves and our performance. But everything you say, and the way you choose to say it, should be about your listeners. What interests them and turns them on? What needs do they have that you can fulfill? How can your approach, and the language you use, be specifically designed to reach and move them?
- Choose humanity over data. Presenters who focus solely on delivering data make two mistakes. First, they allow themselves to be subsumed by the data, diminishing their importance. And second, they forget the human-to-human connection. When you actually talk to listeners, whether it's in person or online, they hear it. Suddenly, both your intention and the shared characteristics of the activity become much clearer. If thinking like this makes you tell stories that incorporate the data instead of just turning on the fire hose, then (literally), more power to you.
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Gary Genard is an actor, author, and expert in public speaking and overcoming speaking fear. His company, The Genard Method offers live 1:1 Zoom executive coaching and corporate group training worldwide. He is the author of the Amazon Best-Seller How to Give a Speech. His second book, Fearless Speaking, was named in 2019 as "One of the 100 Best Confidence Books of All Time." For nine consecutive years, he was ranked by Global Gurus as one of The World’s Top 30 Communication Professionals. and he has been named as one of America's Top 5 Speech Coaches. His handbook for presenting in videoconferences, Speaking Virtually offers techniques for developing virtual presence. He is also the author of Speak for Leadership: An Executive Speech Coach's Secrets for Developing Leadership Presence. His latest book is The Confidence Book: 75 Ways to Reduce Your Anxiety, Let Go of Your Fears, Change Your Negative Thinking, and Perform At Your Professional Best. He is also the creator of The Dr. William Scarlet psychic mysteries. Contact Gary here.
