145: What Pro Public Speakers Do - a podcast by Dr. Greg Story

When you see someone do a very good presentation, your faith in public speaking humanity is restored.  There are so many poor examples of people killing their personal and professional brands with poor public speaking skills, it is refreshing to see talks done well.  It is not that hard really, if you know what you are doing and if you rehearse and practice.  This is where the majority of lousy, boring and uninspiring speakers trip up.  They don’t rehearse or practice. Instead, they just unload on their poor unsuspecting audience.  Here is a pro hint.  Never practice on your audience!

The global CEO of a major pharma company jetted into town recently and spoke at a chamber of commerce event.  The presentation was well structured and flowed in a way that was easy to follow.  The slides were professional and clear.  He spoke fluently, wasn’t reading from any script and instead was talking about the key points up on screen.  When we got to Q&A, he repeated the question, so that everyone could hear it and then answered it.  He did that while addressing the entire audience, rather than just speaking to the inquirer.  When he did not have the information referred to in a question, he admitted it straight up, without trying to fudge it.  This is not an admission of weakness, rather it builds trust and credibility.

I doubt he did any rehearsal for that audience, because it was a stump speech he has given so many times he was entirely comfortable with the content.  Could he have done better?  Yes, he could have added more stories into the presentation.  A few vignettes from the exciting world of white lab coats, where they were developing new medicines to save humanity, would have been good.  He could have delivered it with a bit more passion.  It was professional, but it came across as a stump speech.  He was supremely comfortable delivering it and that is one issue we have to be alert to.  When we are too comfortable, we can sometimes slip ourselves into cruise control mode.  We should keep upping the ante each occasion, to try and see how much further we can push ourselves as presenters.

Another function I attended was an industry awards event and the main VIP guest made some remarks before announcing the winners.  Humour is very, very hard to get right.  For every professional comedian we see on television, there are thousands waiting tables and trying to break into the industry. When you see humour done well by a public speaker, you are impressed. 

You need to have material that is funny for a start.  Then you have to be able to deliver it so that people laugh.  This sounds easy, but as professional comedians know, the timing of the delivery is key.  So are the pauses and the weighting of certain key words.  It has to be delivered fluently, so no ums and ahs, no hesitations, no mangling of words.  Getting the facial expressions to match what is being said is also tricky.

Our humorous VIP was delivering some lines that he had used a number of times before, so he knew his material worked.  It is always good when big shots are self depreciating.  We can more easily identify with them, when they don’t come across as taking themselves too seriously.  “I am good and I know it”, doesn't work so well with the rest of us.  How do you become humorous as a speaker?

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