The key to keeping an audience in its seats can be divided into three areas: what you say, what you show and how you present.
What You Say: The opening to the most direct platform for communicating your brand message needs to grab the attention of your audience. Adding an element of intrigue, or tease and reveal, ensures that your audience has a motive to stay engaged throughout.
The opening also needs to function as a kind of contents page, with chapter headings, so that the audience knows what to expect from you. Outline, with interest and clarity, what you are going to be covering in your speech, and how (if relevant) there will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end. If someone asks you a question, thank them for it to give them confidence and validation. Answer it on the spot, if it makes sense to do so, or come back to it later.
If you are speaking at a press conference, the audience will be expertly equipped in posing questions that may have you reveal more than you intended, or even trip you up for the sake of a good story. You really need to stick to your prescribed party line and maintain control of the floor. To handle this, be more prepared than you ever thought necessary. Anticipate potential questions and practice deflecting with responses like, “Unfortunately, this isn’t relevant to the topic,” or, “I’m not at liberty to answer this.” Or answer a question you say you would have hoped they’d ask, or simply move onto someone else.
Remember you don’t have to answer ifyou don’t want to. If it’s a press event, you can close it down if questions become difficult and unproductive. Never veer from the script; stay calm.
Ultimately, you need to provide the audience unique and original content, backed up with new data and comprehensive facts, delivered in bite-sized pieces. A presentation, in particular, is not the platform for a long-form monologue. What you are aiming for is a high takeaway factor, meaning that the information has a life beyond the end of the speech.
At a press conference, the goal is to get coverage, and the way to do that is to provide unique content in bite-sized chunks. More important, you need to control that the articles written afterward contain the story you want told. To avoid coverage that misrepresents your brand, talk with complete clarity, repeatand reinforce your brand message and stick to the script.
Because we consume information in short bursts, via multimedia, and often on the move, a speech or presentation needs to compete with that. Using bullet points and recaps will help the audience along the journey.
What You Show: It usually helps to illustrate your speech with some sort of visuals, but choosing these badly could undermine all the hard work invested in your words. If you are using images, make sure they are aligned with your brand. Clichéd stock shots, or illustrations that still bear the watermark of the illustrator’s agency, will represent you or your brand poorly. Similarly, make sure any video is relevant and keep it under five minutes long or minds will start to wander. Test visuals in advance.
How You Present: Make sure you convey the content of your talk with fitting facial expressions, in a businesslike manner, without any cartoonish exaggeration. If in doubt, imagine you are talking to a close friend. With that will come authenticity. If you smile when you are nervous, make a mental note to be aware of it. Delivering bad news with a smile is never advisable. If you’re not sure what your default delivery style is, practice in front of a friend or colleague whose opinion you value.
Power posturing is helpful to assert your authority. Think long spine. Staying still and grounded will give your words weight. Avoid pacing, but gesture moderately to drive a point, and come forward to the front of your platform to highlight key moments. Make eye contact, not just with people in the front few rows but all the way to the back and on each side of the room.
If you need a confidence boost, use prompt cards. Memorizing the speech can leave it dry and soulless. Finally, be authentic. A level of honesty always helps an audience to empathize. Your voice is unique, so own it.
CONTACT: @CharlesSBarber