Power up your Speaking Toolkit: Five Tips for Presenters

Elena, a gifted medical writer, was honored to be chosen to train her expanding team in a New England Biotechnology firm, but was losing sleep over her quiet and self-conscious delivery when speaking to groups. Through her promotion to team trainer was welcome, she felt she lacked the skills to speak publicly with confidence and charisma. Elena isn’t alone, of course.

Presenters and Instructors intuitively know that presentation and speaking competence increases trainees’ attentiveness, enjoyment, motivation, and retention of material.

Yet, though speaking excellence is a key component of engagement, many professionals haven’t had the opportunity to formally learn and apply key oral image techniques.

Fortunately, the field of corporate presentation and speech coaching can add to a presenter, and Instructors, presentation toolkit--and to participants satisfaction and results during the experience. 

Let’s look at the top five skills for your speaking toolkit.  Our focus is on your oral image- how to sound confident, clear, and enthusiastic.

1.    Vocal Variety: Sound interested and interesting with one word per phrase emphasis.

• Vocal variety is the ability to use your voice as a tool for conveying meaning and emotion. One word in each sentence should jump out through increasing volume and pitch.

• You can be generous with vocal variety-emphasizing even more than one word in a sentence.

• No one has ever complained that a presenter, or instructor, was too interesting, so no worries about sounding overly dramatic.

Practice emphasizing different words in each of these sentences:

• Presenters need to hold their listeners’ attention.

• Speaking and teaching is a rewarding and valuable profession.

• Presenters benefit from outstanding presentation skills.

2.    Speed Control: Keep up a good clip of around 200+ words per minute.

Here is a surprising fact: Your audience will prefer a slightly faster than average versus slower rate of speech. The reason is that our brains can absorb up to 800 words per minute, but our mouths are not so well equipped.

The average speaker produces only 175-250 words per minute!

Now you know why our minds can so easily wander when we listen to speakers, and why presenters, and instructors, need to be more fluent than average talkers to hold attention.

In between the lines below, you have 185 words from this article. Time yourself to see if you can clearly speak the piece aloud in a one -minute time frame.

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Presenters need to be mindful of what is being shown and what is being said at every moment. The ability to match verbal comments and the visual presentation is called Synchronization or being ‘In Synch’. This would apply both to a presentation or a fitness class setting.

Here are synchronization techniques to practice (for presentaitions):

•  Try to say the title of the slide as you click on the slide or turn the page.

   So, the title is seen as the title is said.

  
  

• Use builds, showing only one segment of a slide at a time, in order to ensure that your listeners aren’t reading ahead. They can read  a lot faster than presenters can talk! 

• Mastering the art of synching with word slides means helping presenters to think about what they can add to the words on the slide.

  
  

• The presenter always wants to say more than is shown in order to hold attention and enhance credibility.  We don’t want listeners to find the slides more helpful than the speaker!

  
  

  So, the rule for word slides is:

  Say more than you show. Show less than you say.

  Remember, YOU are always the most interesting visual in the room!

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Here are synchronization techniques to practice (for Group Fitness Classes):

• Pre-Cue your participants when finishing one move, start to talk about what comes nest so that they are ready

• Hold participants attention by discussing physical alignment and sensations while performing the movement.  Talk about goals and outcomes to encourage the participant to work hard and focus on correct form and alignment for movement success.

3.    Pause Perfectly -Learn the 1-2 technique.

The perfect pause lasts for about two seconds-a count of 1-2.

This silence allows your listeners absorb information, and for you to take a new breath. (Breathing is highly recommended, lol!)

Use the 1-2 pause at the end of each thought, and where you would place a comma, if your message was written out.

Of course, if you are delivering complex or emotional information, statistics, or difficult news, consider doubling your pause time.

Presenters, and instructors, are very concerned about what speech experts call vocalized pauses, those pesky ums, ahs, and you knows. The good news is that speakers are allowed up to three percent mistakes in spoken English, so there’s no need to be self-conscious about an occasional vocalized pause. In fact, you’ll sound more authentic if your speech is a bit less than perfect.

Practice delivering the directions below (inbetween ,the lines) pausing for the 1-2 count after periods, commas and thought groups.

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Presenters who come across as comfortable, conversational, and natural usually practice at least 10 times before their first class or speaking engagement.

Each presenter needs to find a practice method which leads to fluency, and confidence building.

 Practice ideas include:

• Saying your presentation, or discussing the movement, aloud

• Rehearsing in your head-perhaps visualizing the words

• Practicing with a peer, and receiving helpful feedback

• Creating bullet notes which evoke the whole thought

• Starting with content practice-then moving on to delivery

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4.    Watch your Words: Speech Clarity Techniques

Since trainers speak for a living, they are expected to have exceptional speech clarity, compared other professionals.

Here are techniques which create a polished and confident speech pattern.

• Mind your D and T endings, especially on the last sound and word in a sentence. These consonants occur more frequently than others, so saying them clearly gives you an articulate edge. Say these sentences with a puff of air on the D and T sounds at the end of words.

•  Clients who develop trust are bound to last.

• Speaking works best when the presenter, or instructor, invest time and interest.

Tip: Be on the lookout for consonant blends—two consonants together at the end of words. We all tend to drop the last sound, saying “jus” for “just”, or “tes” for test.

• Look out for lengthy words. The longer a word is, and the more syllables it contains, the harder it is to pronounce. When you face a tricky word, count the number of syllables, and figure out which syllable gets the emphasis.

Try pronouncing these common words. Three have four syllables, and one has five.

•   Literally

•   Incredibly

•   Financially

•   Eventually

Tip: Note the words of four or more syllables you have in your training vocabulary to make sure you are including all the syllables.

5.    Value your Voice: Volume and Pitch

Each of us has a unique voice, which is a combination of our breath support, vocal cord vibration, and the resonance chamber in our oral and nasal cavities.

Gender and genetics, of course, play an important role. Though we may never have the vocal appeal of Meryl Streep or Morgan Freeman, presenters can find their optimum voice.

A pleasant and rich voice will add to your audiences comfort and attention during your sessions, or classes.

 Here are two ways to be a presenter, or instructor, with a valued voice:

Find your best volume and vocal tone

•  Try this visualization. During in person events, picture your voice riding on an arrow or magic carpet, floating to the person who is farthest way. The key is to feel minimal tension in your throat, where your larynx is housed.

• The point at which you feel minimal tension and project with a pleasant tone is your optimal voice.

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• Have a peer judge whether you are too loud, too soft, or just right.

 Tip: A conversational volume works best in the virtual world. Many presenters find that a microphone attachment adds to their ideal sound quality.

•  Love those vowels.

•  Vowel sounds carry our unique sound.

•   Practice lengthening them slightly for best voice quality.

•   Opening your mouth wider on your vowels adds richness to your vocal quality.

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Here are practice sentences with some great opportunities for lengthening and maximizing mouth opening on the vowel sounds:

        Howard and Carol like to sound confident and authentic.

        Outstanding trainers are open to all ideas.

Your oral image excellence will be noticed -and will add to your training reputation and results. Keep powering up with these five pointers and you’ll be known as a presenter who’s also highly prized speaker.

Laurie Schloff  is a lifelong corporate speech and communication coach and author of the classic book, Smart Speaking.

Laurie’s leads the Train the Presentation Coach Certificate Program.

laurie@partnersincommunicationinc.com