My Holy Trinity Of Public Speaking
This week, I was booked for a speaking engagement in Norwich, Connecticut. I’ll be presenting on the topic of “Resume Magic” at the Business Apparel Drive, a “tradeshow style” event to benefit local business women with all proceeds going to the Tames River Family Program in Norwich. During my presentation, I’ll be sharing some valuable tips for writing a resume that gets noticed. These days, a well-written resume is a must! With so many people fighting for a limited number of jobs, everyone wants to know what they can do to make their resume stand out from the crowd. It’s a great topic and one I’m super excited to be talking about.
Today, I’m starting to draft my presentation and before I really jump in, I thought I’d take some time to review my personal “Holy Trinity” of public speaking here.
1. Make a Connection…Fast
It’s a cardinal rule of public speaking to “start off with a bang” and I certainly believe this is a necessity. You’ve got to grab the attention of your audience right away; otherwise, they’ll start drifting immediately. Though estimates of the average length of human attention span vary greatly, you basically have about two to five minutes to make an impact before the audience will start really zoning out (that’s a scientific term). Sure, you might be able to get them back, but for every minute they’re mentally wandering somewhere else, it’s just that much harder. Believe me, I know! And when you’re on stage giving a presentation, you know when you’ve lost your audience. It can cause serious panic as you try to get them back. Do yourself and your audience a favor: Grab their attention right away, and keep it.
How do you do that? Make a connection. I’m not a big fan of starting off with a joke or anything like that. To me, that’s pretty cliché. Instead, I prefer to share a personal, relevant story that will either surprise the audience, or inspire them to feel an immediate personal bond with me. At times I do make these stories funny because humor is a great way to create a light atmosphere. Sharing laughter is a bonding experience in itself.
2. Be Substantive – Provide Unique Information They HAVEN’T HEARD BEFORE
I can’t stand sitting through an informative presentation that just rehashes things I already know. It’s a complete waste of time. Consider a presentation about “Resume Magic” that just reviewed how to write an “objective” or how to create succinct bullet points. Anyone who’s written a resume has probably heard that stuff before. What’s new there? When you attend a session on a topic that most people have heard discussed a million times, you want to discover something NEW.
Admittedly, some speakers are really more “entertainers” so they aren’t quite as focused on the substance. While I like to entertain, I also like to teach people. Whenever I finish a speech, I love hearing how excited people are to utilize their newfound knowledge. I can usually tell when I’m hitting the nail on the head during a speech because audience members’ eyes will widen, they’ll lean forward and they’ll start furiously scribbling notes.
I make it my personal mission, when speaking, to provide quality information that is (hopefully) new to most of my audience. I want them to remember me because I was the person who taught them something incredibly valuable, something they never knew, and something they now can’t live without. In order to do that, I need to understand my audience and their background on the subject.
Because my presentations are more about “teaching” than just “entertaining,” it’s important to communicate clearly. I have to be informative but concise. I have to structure my presentation in an organized way to prevent any possible confusion. After all, the last thing I want is for the audience to leave feeling uncertain about what they just learned.
3. Keep It Conversational
I’m not a big fan of stiff, formal speeches. In fact, I don’t know many people who are. I prefer to keep my presentations somewhat informal, so I don’t write them out word-for-word. Instead, I create a list of the key points I want to cover. In my opinion, it’s much easier to listen to someone who is speaking extemporaneously. Using bullet points gives me more ability to engage with the audience, as I’m not concerned with reciting each word perfectly. Instead, I’m thinking about really explaining the concepts, and I’m watching the audience, gauging their reactions as I go. This allows me more freedom to adapt to the audience without feeling that I’ve gotten “off track.”
If I’m explaining a particularly difficult concept, such as how to create a macro in Microsoft Excel, I’ll create a handout that outlines the steps. Then, I’ll ask the audience not to worry about taking notes and just to listen. This helps take pressure out of the room. The audience knows they’ll get a “cheat sheet” so they’re able to just relax and pay attention, rather than scribbling furiously.
I really enjoy public speaking, and I enjoy it even more when I’m providing quality information that people can use. I’ll report back on how the “Holy Trinity” works out in Norwich, CT. I’m feeling pretty pumped!