Focusing an audience’s attention and conveying messages with clarity and conviction are essential assets in most professional situations. But not everyone is a natural born speaker… How to develop this skill?
Simplify your message to create a greater impact
It is more important to ensure that your audience has understood and memorized your key messages rather than saying it all.
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Restrict your speaking time to 20 minutes to ensure your audience stays attentive.
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Prepare concise presentations, e.g. A few messages (and few words!), concrete examples rather than concepts.
Appeal to emotion as much as to reason
A well-constructed rational basis can convince, but emotion will trigger the desire to act and over-achieve.
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Learn how to use “story telling”, e.g. A story about one of your failures will carry more weight than a simple warning to be cautious.
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Use different means to prove your point to different audiences, e.g. Statistical data will appeal to some, while others will respond to quotations, real life examples, etc.
Take action
Practice combining several levels of speech during a presentation (20 min)
Adapting to the various listening and reasoning styles is the best way to secure the support of a large audience.
Take the opportunity of a presentation of low stakes to try and present your ideas in different ways. E.g.: Call on the logical arguments but also on the emotions of your audience, insist on both the immediate impact and the final objective of your project, work on both the visual and the auditory effects of your speech, etc.
Observe the impact of the different presentation styles on your audience. Collect the feedback of several persons who attended your presentation: at what point did they find you the most convincing? The most sincere? What key points have they retained? What differences can you observe?
Start a presentation by telling a story (20 min)
Storytelling is a very effective, influential tool that can be used by all.
Identify a personal story that could help you touch your audience and establish complicity. It must be in line with your values and your vision, so that you can tell it with ease and passion. To do this, ask yourself: what have been the highlights of your life? Your negative memories? Your most striking encounters? The anecdotes that left an impression on you?
Prepare the telling of your story: to make an impact, it must remain simple yet include sufficient details that your audience can imagine the scene. Write a script of the story to clarify its line.
Rehearse your story several times and in different modes to improve the way you present it. E.g.: in front of someone who will provide feedback, in front of a mirror, recording yourself…
Simplify one of your presentations (15 min)
Attract the attention of your audience by focusing your presentation on a few key messages.
Select a presentation you regularly give, or that you have to give in the coming week, and ask yourself: how could you reduce it by half?
Drastically select the information that you will give your audience. For this, you need to answer two questions: “If they were to only retain one thing, what should it be?” and “If I am allowed two arguments to convince them, which would I put forward?”
Review your visual supports: how could you achieve the same impact (or even more impact!) with only a third of the words currently used?
Practical Tips
> Vary the style of your presentations to reach a wider audience
> Rational arguments and stories: two complementary tools of influence
Find out more
> How to manage your team’s attention?
> Five tips to capture the full attention of your audience… and keep it!
© Managéris