How to Be Yourself, Polished
How many rules must you implement to be a speaker who persuades audiences? Only ONE!
Yes, the ONE rule that you must implement is to Be Yourself, Polished. Audiences want authenticity that is free from rough edges, potholes, and abrasions. Once you have put the audience's interests into the content of your presentation, you must practice your presentation until it shines. The polish communicates that you respect the valuable time the audience has chosen to devote to your presentation, and helps the audience really hear your call to action.
Eliminate distractions
These include audible pauses (ums, ahs, throat-clearing), pacing or other repetitive movements, and the "monos": tone, pace, and volume.Silent pauses are good—the audience gets time to take a mental break, while you're thinking. Train yourself to eliminate the noises you make during these pauses.
Techniques that will help
- Record your presentation, listen for the audible pauses, and practice those sections repeatedly until the thoughts flow smoothly without the noise.
- Get a friend to listen to your presentation and to tap the table every time you pause with noise. Once you become aware of the audible pauses, you can consciously pause silently.
- Pacing or other rhythmic or repetitive movements are distracting--the audience gets caught up in them, and doesn't hear you.
- Videotape yourself during a practice, and observe where and when you pace or rock back and forth.
- Practice those sections repeatedly, keeping the video running, until you have replaced the pacing with deliberate movement.
Deliberate movements include moving towards the audience for emphasis, moving backwards (but always facing forward) to reduce the intensity of your presence momentarily, and moving from one side of the presentation space to the other for periods of time.
The "monos" at the least lull the audience members into their own thoughts, and at worst make them so bored that they dislike and resent you. Changing the tone, pace and volume are easy once you start thinking about them.
- Tone is the "attitude" of your voice--is it sweet, aggressive, commanding, comforting, suspenseful, excited? You can choose the right tone for the various parts of your message, and use a variety of tones to keep the audience paying attention and hearing you.
- Pace is the speed of your speaking, and should change from time to time as your points change, as you have content to emphasize, and as you need to create drama, suspense, a challenge or other qualities.
- Volume is how loud or soft your voice is, and volume variety also helps the audience hear you.
Combine different tones, paces and volumes deliberately to create different emphases in your content and you will persuade the audience to follow your call to action.
Practice authenticity
Can one be authentic and practiced simultaneously? Authenticity means that you focus on your natural style rather than copying the style ofr another person. Practice means that you polish that natural style.For example, if you naturally gesture a lot during conversations with colleagues and friends, gesturing would be a component of your natural style.
While practicing your presentation you would allow yourself to gesture freely. However, if you have an irritating gesture, such as rubbing your nose, jabbing the air with one pointed finger or crossing your arms across your chest, you would polish away those gestures because they distract the audience from your message.
If your natural style is a low key-quiet voice, few gestures, contained intensity--this is the style the audience should see. To polish it you would add some variety to the tone and pace of your voice, while keeping the volume at your normal quiet level.
If you stand quietly while talking in conversation, you would polish this by practicing good posture and by leaning forward a little towards the audience.
If you tend to pace or rock while talking in an unstructured setting, you would change the rhythmic movement to intentional movement.
What if your natural style is high-energy, high volume and high speed? The audience will tire of this, and stop hearing you if you don't provide them some relief. The audience doesn't have the same options those in conversation with you have-- interrupting, changing the subject or ending the conversation-- so you must be conscious of your style and polish it to give them the relief they can't get on their own.
Polishing includes sometimes slowing the pace, and lowering the volume, and adding a variety of tones or attitudes to your voice. This polishing will leave the audience with the impression that you are a high-energy kind of person, rather than that you are overwhelming and impossible to listen to.
Implement this ONE rule-Be Yourself, Polished-and your audience will hear you and take the action you are calling them to take.
