{"id":377,"date":"2012-12-20T07:01:30","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T07:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/?p=377"},"modified":"2013-01-30T02:42:20","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T02:42:20","slug":"6-smart-tips-for-effective-public-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/2012\/12\/6-smart-tips-for-effective-public-speaking\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Smart Tips for Effective Public Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

We marketers are expected to do it all these days–come up with creative ideas, put them into prose or better yet poetry, be social media gurus, and be effective public speakers. We may or may not be comfortable addressing groups of strangers yet, but there will probably come a time–at either at trade show, or a sales presentation, or a conference–when we\u2019ll be called upon to inform, inspire, and entertain.<\/p>\n

\"BrandMeHere are some tips to smooth the way:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Size up the room. Have you ever been to a meeting where the room holds 100, but only 20 showed up? And they\u2019re hanging on the back rows to beat a speedy retreat if the speaker is boring? The speaker has to tell the assembled to move down into a few rows in front. So, if you know you\u2019re speaking to a dozen or so, arrange the chairs in a friendly semi-circle so it looks more like a discussion than a lecture. Treat it more like a conversation and get to questions as quickly as possible to make the meeting more interactive.<\/li>\n
  2. Of course, you may be addressing a full auditorium and be behind a podium. In that case, make an effort to make eye contact with members of the audience. It\u2019s not necessary to stare, which might make someone uncomfortable, but making eye contact with audience members is better than looking down at notes or off into space. Modulate your voice to the size of the crowd. Don\u2019t raise your voice to a small group of people but don\u2019t mumble either. Don\u2019t be a \u201clow talker.\u201d If it\u2019s a large hall, try to reach a person in the last row, so they don\u2019t feel left out.<\/li>\n
  3. Can the PowerPoint? I\u2019ve sat through them, you\u2019ve sat through them, but it\u2019s still up for grabs whether the world of communications is better off with PowerPoint. One problem is the presentation may distract from, rather than enhance, what you are saying. If your speech is full of figures and facts that need to be illustrated by graphics, fine, but if the graphics are just \u201cthere\u201d for their own sake, then it\u2019s better if the audience is focused on you. Because you are an interesting speaker.<\/li>\n
  4. Brevity is the soul of wit. Shakespeare said that, and it only took him six words to do so. In case you hadn\u2019t noticed, people have short attention spans these days. The average sitcom has but 18 minutes of show. But that\u2019s to a speaker\u2019s benefit, because it forces us to beam in on what\u2019s important. The Gettysburg Address had 464 words, about a page and a half of writing.<\/li>\n
  5. Every speech should have a three part plan of action<\/i>: tell them what you\u2019re going to say, say it and tell them what you said. That allows the speaker to repeat the message in various ways three times, which is important because you need to fill the time and…<\/li>\n
  6. Speaking eats copy. A \u201cfast talker\u201d can go through a page of copy in less than a minute. Learn to slow down and enunciate so you don\u2019t sound hurried or tense.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We marketers are expected to do it all these days–come up with creative ideas, put them into prose or better yet poetry, be social media gurus, and be effective public speakers. We may or may not be comfortable addressing groups of strangers yet, but there will probably come a time–at either at trade show, or a sales presentation, or a conference–when we\u2019ll be called upon to inform, inspire, and entertain. Here are some tips to smooth the way: Size up the room. Have you ever been to a meeting where the room holds 100, but only 20 showed up? And they\u2019re hanging on the back rows to beat a speedy retreat if the speaker is boring? The speaker has to tell the assembled to move …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing-advice","tag-public-speaking","tag-speaking-advice","tag-speaking-tips"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}