You know the joke with the punch line, You can't get there from here? The same goes for presentations! — Here's how to be a successful speaker in business.
Is there any one way to be a successful speaker in business? Of course not.
There is, however, one element of your speeches, presentations, sales pitches, updates, and all the rest that will propel you toward success. I'll share it with you here. That, and the other practices I mention below, equal a winning formula to achieving your goal whenever you speak.
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Truth and The Art of Performance
Public speaking stands apart from other business skills. It is unique in that trying to be good at it runs the risk of achieving the opposite. Why? A moment's thought gives the answer: if you aim for excellence—if you "try to be good"—your focus will be on yourself. Here's how to be a clear, concise, and compelling speaker instead.
If you're focused on looking good, you lose sight of the whole purpose of your speech or presentation: to give your audience what it needs. The pursuit of visible excellence in public speaking leads to a shallow performance concerned only with appearances. It's like trying to elicit emotions in an audience without having done the work to earn them—what one of my drama teachers in London called "excellent second-rate acting."
5 Ways to Stand Out From the Crowd
Below are five ways you can go deeper, enriching the gift you're giving listeners. After all, it's called 'giving a speech'! The paradox of avoiding surface excellence while aiming for high quality may seem odd. But it's essential, and it will go a long way to helping you succeed. If you want to be good, then, throw the attempt away and serve your audience instead.
That's not to say that you can't chase excellence in terms of your performance. Indeed, you must. But the goal must always be the benefit of your listeners, not your reputation. Here are my suggestions, gleaned from over fifty years of performing, and also teaching and coaching it.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to be excellent. But always think of your audience first. Here's my Free ebook, 12 Easy Ways to Achieve Presence and Charisma. Get it now!
1. Pay Attention to Strategy, Not Just Content
All public speaking is strategic. You must have a clear-cut goal that's as specific as you can make it. That goal is best expressed in terms of an active infinitive verb. For example: "To educate the sales force about the company's new software product and to test their ability to demonstrate it to clients before the end of the session." That's infinitely better than "To discuss the new software." The latter risks failure; the former ensures success. Think in terms of what you want your audience to think, feel, or do by the end of your talk. Often, all three matter.
2. Shape Your Talk In Terms of Drama
Who says your presentation must be a boring compilation of data? To get the most out of a speech, make sure you know where the climax comes. Then shape your talk so that your content leads steadily up to that moment, and consider what you want the downward slope to be like for the audience. Don't try to be dramatic if the material doesn't lend itself to that. But be sure you show the human side of the story you're telling. That's right: you should be telling a story. Keep in mind, though, that your story doesn't have to mimic classic storytelling techniques. It only has to put human beings in the center of what you're getting at.
3. Own Your Stage
As I tell clients, the one aspect of your talk which will show audiences you have the stuff of leadership is your nonverbal communication. That's the physical expression of your ideas. How you hold yourself and move, the pacing you employ, your facial expressions and the strength of your gestures, all display your qualities for all to see. One more thing: make sure you move. A large convention hall stage or a few feet at the foot of a conference table in a boardroom both offer opportunities for movement. Use your performance space! An always effective technique is to move just before you start a new segment or idea. Here's how to captivate your audience. And here are three surefire ways to command the stage anytime you speak.
4. Disappear Into Your Message
It's clear that if you're thinking of how your performance is going over, your focus won't be where it needs to be: on the audience's reception of your ideas. Therefore, you must pour everything you have into those moments of performance. The more you believe in what you're saying and feel a compelling need to get that across to listeners, the more dynamic and interesting you will be to listen to and observe.
5. Play for Truth Not Glory
Let's get back to the acting example. One of the most powerful ways you can give a great performance is to use the actor's approach to truth. Here's another paradox: The only way an audience believes that an actor is a character in a dramatic scene is not through artifice but truth. But how can that be? We all know that this is an actor playing a part. But that performer knows how to inhabit that character completely. And they never try to give a good performance. Instead, they aim for truth in every moment of the drama. That is, the actor knows what's coming, but the character doesn't. And so a true reaction occurs at every moment in that character's life. Your truth is what the audience needs to hear from you at every moment. In this way, they matter, you don't. Play that, and don't be surprised if a little glory comes your way.
The Joke (my version): A couple in a car with out-of-state plates pulls up to an old gent sitting outside a general store in Maine.
They lower the passenger side window and ask, "Can you tell us how to get to the Maine State Fair grounds?"
"Ayup," the old gent replies. He points down the street in the direction the car is headed. "You see that gas station, and the street kind of veers to the left just past it? Well, you go that way. The road is gonna bend back and forth, but you just keep followin' it till you come to a tree on the left that's been blasted by lightnin'. Go about a mile past that, till you see an rusted tractor on the right side of the road. Been there forty years, I'd say. Right there is where you take a right, on the road at that spot where the tractor sits.
Now you're gonna go through three . . . no, four stop signs. You'll see a herd of cows in the field on your right, all of 'em black with a wide white stripe down the middle. Those are called Belted Galloways, or Belties. We call 'em Oreo cows. He! He! Well now, you keep drivin' past them cows and . . ." He stops, scratches his head and looks surprised. "Come to think on it," he tells the two out-of-state folks, "You can't get there from here."
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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 supernatural thrillers. Contact Gary here.
