“The leaders all think they’re great speakers, but there is a huge quality spectrum.”

This is one of the most common things we hear from clients who bring us in to upskill a group of leaders. More often than not, we’re hired by one individual to coach another individual on their presentation skills. Public speaking skills are like facilitation skills: they’re easy to recognize in other people, but difficult to self-evaluate.

After coaching many individuals as they prepare for a talk, keynote, panel, interview, etc, we think we have figured out why it’s hard to see your own strengths and opportunities in this space; public speaking is not just about the moment on the stage. Great public speaking begins weeks before the actual event, when you figure out what you’re going to say. Then, in the moment, it’s about knowing how to say it just right.

PREPARE

When it comes to what you say, you figure that out in your preparation. Check out the  guiding principles to help you prepare.

Craft your message for relevance and clarity. 

It may be tempting to grab all your content, add headlines, and throw it together into a slide deck; after all, everything you know is relevant to your message. But that isn’t exactly true. People don’t need to know everything that you know in order to find value in your presentation. In fact, “everything” will muddy your message and make it tough for your audience to walk away with clear takeaways. Every audience and context is unique. Before plotting out an outline or building slides, consider:

• Who is your audience? What will they value learning?

• What is the main takeaway or call to action you’d like to convey?

• What does your audience need to know to buy into your takeaway?

Make your slides easy to understand.

Often we see presenters get clear on the “talk track” part of their presentation, but their slides still contain too much information. The last thing you want is your audience focusing on reading your slide instead of listening to what you’re saying.  Your slide should help their brain focus on what matters, not distract them with tons of details. Make your slides skimmable and quickly understood. When your building your slides, try to do the following:

• Make each slide’s main idea (there should only be one) super clear.

• Replace text or tables with graphics and visuals that have more meaning.

• Simplify your bullets, and minimize the number of items on your lists.

Convey meaning with your design.

Design is something that’s not intuitive to everyone. It’s easy to make a poorly designed slide, which can inadvertently cause misunderstandings or confusion. That said, even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, you can make sure your design choices make sense and “hang together.” Follow these guidelines:

• Visually align related elements.

• Standardize position, colors, and styles.

• Vary position, color, and style only when it is meaningful.

DELIVER

Once you have a slide deck and voice over, it’s time to deliver your presentation. This is a whole different set of challenges and skills. The following three guiding principles will help you deliver your presentation powerfully.

Communicate a clear message.

When we’re speaking, people don’t always hear and understand everything we say. It’s important to pay attention to how you speak in order to make sure folks are picking up what you’re putting down. Use these tips to communicate a clear message:

• Use pauses! A pause placed just before or after (or both!) a word or sentence cues your audience to process that point.

• Leverage your voice as an instrument; dynamics like pitch and pace add meaning to your presentation. When  you don’t leverage them intentionally, your audience will still interpret meaning from them, and potentially misunderstand your message.

Connect with your audience.

You are not speaking in a vacuum. The whole point of a talk or presentation is to share some information with your audience. It’s also an opportunity to engage them emotionally and physiologically. It’s an opportunity for them to see you as a content expert, thought leader, or resource on the topic. Follow these tips to connect when you’re giving a presentation:

• Use open body language: show the palms of hands (not the backs) and avoid crossing your arms or legs. 

• Make eye contact with individuals in your audience. 

• Face the audience, not your slides.

Project Credibility and Confidence

If you’re not a practiced speaker, this may be the hardest task of all. The body language of a powerful speaker is not everyday body language and requires intentionality and some adjustment 

• Breathe deeply before you begin to calm yourself and support your voice. 

• Stand with an open posture with your weight evenly distributed and your arms relaxed at your sides. 

• Have an intentional first and last sentence so you can begin and end with confidence. 

• Express gratitude instead of apologizing. 

• Slow down. Use silence instead of filler words. 

• Use broad gestures to convey confidence. 

• Move with intentionality. Pacing and meaningless gestures distract your audience.

The list above is not exhaustive, but it is robust and can feel overwhelming. Identify a few areas that are new for you and experiment with applying one or two tips at a time.

Above all, the most important thing, however, is finding ways to  practice these tips in different situations before you get in front of a high-pressure audience or on a big-ticket stage. Find a peer, team, or friends and turn your living room or meeting room into a “stage.”  Part of what makes any kind of public speaking challenging is that it’s a new or different experience. Give yourself opportunities to practice and repeat these strategies so that you  deliver your next presentation powerfully.

Are you interested in a one page resource with these tips and more? Download here.