Speak properly and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.
William Penn
Before I suggest some techniques on how to write a talk which will hold your audience’s attention, I’d like to look at the main differences between reading and listening, because you must put yourself in the listeners’ shoes if you are going to be able to write a convincing and natural script.
In an earlier chapter, I described the problems of keeping the attention of your listeners with the spoken word. Listening is not easy. Our own thoughts provide a plethora of distractions. Reading is different; if a reader is distracted, she rereads a sentence or paragraph or even an entire chapter. I wonder if on the first day of a holiday you have had the experience of repeatedly rereading the opening chapter of your book; you couldn’t concentrate because your thoughts kept returning to the work which you had left behind and the possible problems which might have occurred during your absence. However, if your mind wandered, you could return to your book and attempt to concentrate again. Listeners can’t do this. II they don’t concentrate during your talk, they don’t have an opportunity of relistening. They only have one chance to understand what you are saying.
Readers can vary the speed of their reading and if the material is complex or unfamiliar, they can stop and refer to a dictionary or even discuss it with a colleague. Listeners can’t vary the pace of the speaker’s delivery.
Readers can skim in order to see the total idea and reread
what they feel is relevant. Listeners can’t anticipate your total talk; only you know the complete picture and, therefore, what might seem clear to you may be incomprehensible to your listeners.
So listeners can’t:
• Relisten —a reader can turn back pages to reread.
• Halt or vary the pace —a reader can pause to discuss or digest what he has read.
• Listen forward —a reader can read ahead and skim, to select what he wants.
So, because listeners can’t move backwards or forwards or vary the speed of their listening, what can you do to help them to follow, understand and retain what you are saying?
If you give your listeners an outline of your talk or a map to show them where you intend leading them, they will find it easier to follow you. This is the equivalent of the reader who skims to identify the main points before settling down to read the details. Here is how one speaker identified the path along which she was taking her listeners. “There are three main areas which the marketing department has examined over the past six months. Advertising, pricing and sales. During my talk, I am going to look at each of these in turn. Firstly advertising. ...”
\ ou can also help your listeners by summarizing and recapping so that the\ know how far along the path you have progressed. Here is an example from the same speech. “So, to summarize our two main recommendations on advertising, we recommend (a) more consumer advertising and (b) limited but clearly defined trade advertising. So much for our recommendations for the
Writing a talk 41
first area that we looked at —advertising, (pause) Now I’d like to turn to the second area —pricing.” You’ll notice from this example that the speaker has numbered each of her three points.
In her final summary, she looked back and told the listeners what they had heard —this is the equivalent of the reader rereading to ensure he has understood. “So the three areas die marketing department examined were advertising, pricing and sales and we are making the following recommendations. One, for advertising, we recommend more consumer advertising and limited but clearly defined advertisements for the trade. Two, on pricing, we recommend a new and simplified discount structure and three, on sales, we recommend a two-tier sales force.”
In the written form, these recaps and summaries appear repetitious and even unnecessary, but remember, they are not for the eye, they are for the ear. Listeners need these reinforcements to help them follow you as well as to help diem retain what you are saying; without them, it is like trying to read a book which has no paragraphs or chapters.
You know that listeners are not concentrating consistently so you must gather them up as you progress along your padi. Rhetorical questions are an excellent method of attracting back listeners from their mental undergrowth. You might ask, “So how do these new plans affect you in the sales department?” or, “Why am I telling you about the changes in our budget forecasting?”
Listeners will concentrate on your answer because you have involved them with a rhetorical question and you have also indicated what is coming next. Use rhetorical questions throughout your script —they are powerful attention grabbers and signposts to what is to follow.
You can also anticipate how your audience may be reacting by saying, “You may be asking yourself; so what on earth has this got to do with the sales department?” or, “You may be
wondering how much extra all these improvements are going to cost.”
With this technique, you are anticipating that your listeners are about to wander off your path into their mental undergrowth and you are enticing them back before they can stray too far.
Remember to recap constantly as you progress from one point to another; this will help people who have disappeared down Route 350 and may have lost the thread of your argument. Their own thoughts are continually interrupting their concentration and you need to help them follow the logic of your talk by signposting each point and recapping frequently. This speaker, who was presenting a problem/solution structure to her staff group, used a combination of recapping and rhetorical questions to help her audience follow her talk: “I told you I would be tackling the problem of our lack of expansion from two angles: the shortage of available funds and overstocking of merchandise. First I’ve given you the details of our current financial situation. You may be wondering what these figures really mean. I can best answer that by referring to my second point — overstocking. Why have we a warehouse full of navy blue suits? Let me tell you....” In this example the speaker has reminded the audience that she will be tackling the problem from two angles; she tells them that she has already given details of the first point, raises their awareness of what she is talking about with a rhetorical question and announces the second point which she is going to discuss.
Facts on their own tend to be dull and you will need to translate them into visual word pictures. “Our warehouse handled twenty tons of merchandise this year. That’s about equivalent to a row of eight-terraced houses” or, “Our representatives traveled over 80,000 miles each this year; that’s like going to Chicago from New York 80 times.”
Try to illustrate with personal examples. This speaker was describing the drawbacks of being self-employed. “jYlany people
envy me because I work from home, but you know I never get away from my ‘office’ and I find myself opening business letters even on a Saturday morning.”
Nothing helps an audience understand as well as personal stories. I remember seeing a very successful sales rep graphically telling an audience about her first disastrous sales call and how she had gone home and nearly given up on the spot. It was her own story and all the audience shared her feelings of rejection and admired her determination to carry on.
The audience will always warm to you if you can reveal your own feelings and weaknesses. It can be difficult to do so. For this reason, the audience will respect your courage. Early on in my teaching career, I remember making a remark toward the end of a day-long seminar to the effect that I had felt nervous at the start of the day. I was amazed at the number of people who were reassured by this comment and felt pleased that I was prepared to make it to them. On reflection I realized that it was because I had felt comfortable with the class that I was able to describe my feelings. If you build in a few self-revealing sentences, your audience will feel you are treating them as friends.
Use personal anecdotes to support your arguments. If you have experiences which illustrate your main point, the audience will understand and remember them more easily.
Make sure your anecdotes or examples are relevant to your audience. I heard a successful talk to a group of schoolboys by a management consultant, in which he compared management with that of being the captain of a baseball team, matching and balancing the strengths and personalities of the players. On another occasion a politician was discussing government revenue and expenditure in terms of billions of dollars; this could be difficult to comprehend for some people, until he equated it to the wages and bills which are familiar to every householder. “Some bills have to be paid every week while others can be
paid every month —but you have to make sure you save a bit every week to pay them.” The amounts may be larger but the principles are the same.
In a sales presentation, you may want to paint a word picture of how your client will feel if she buys your product by describing a similar situation with another client. You could say, “He told me he felt a great sense of relief after the new coffee machine was installed — no more rows about whose turn it was to make coffee.”
The majority of road accidents happen within five miles of the home. Just another boring statistic until a doctor friend of mine told me that if he hadn’t been wearing his seat belt, he wouldn’t be alive today. He had popped out to buy a newspaper and had had a bad accident. This was before safety belts were compulsory in the United Kingdom and his story removed my precious dislike of them.
I have heard a sales manager, who appeared to be remote from the problems of his representatives, vividly describing the times when he was in direct selling and was required to achieve impossible targets set by his manager. His stories were relevant to the audience and illustrated many of the points in his talk.
Put yourself in your listeners’ shoes and ask yourself how can you help them to follow your talk and what will make it relevant to them.
Some speakers like to follow the FEB technique:
F —Feature or Fact E —Effect of the F B — Benefit to the listener
The method for using this technique is as follows: “Because (feature), you will be able to (effect) which means that (benefit).”
Here is an example of this: “Because we have expanded the car park, you will always be able to park, which means that you will save time in the morning.”
These words “because,” “you will be able to,” and “which means that,” are only intended as guides and you can choose your own phrases to fit die sense of your sentence, e.g., “As the board has accepted this proposal, you can start work immediately and say goodbye to your money problems.”
As you prepare your talk, imagine that you have to answer listeners who are asking “So what? What does this mean? How does this affect me, my company, my department, my situation?” You should be able to answer those questions with FEB.
Talking numbers
In general, you should avoid speaking numbers. They are difficult to grasp by ear and can be confusing. Unless precision is essential, round up figures so that the listeners can identify them more easily, e.g., say “nearly half’ instead of “48.27 percent” or “just over three quarters” instead of “76.92 percent.” Work out a method of showing a measurement so that it means more to the audience. “From earth to the moon is 240,250 miles. That means that driving a family car for ten hours a day at fifty" miles per hour, you would arrive there in 480 days, that is on May 11 next year.”
If your talk must include figures, consider using a visual aid or handout so that your listeners can follow your reasoning more easily.
Size
This is difficult to visualize unless you compare it with a familiar object, i.e., smaller than a matchbox; about the size of two double-decker buses; as high as that ceiling or as long as this room.
Avoid jargon and abbreviations
Beware of speaking in terms which are unfamiliar to your audience — this can be very distracting and can cause many of your listeners to switch their energy to pondering on the meaning
46 HOW TO BE AN EFFECTIVE SPEAKER
of a phrase or an abbreviation and so lose the thread of your argument.
Working with colleagues using terminology or abbreviations, which become part of your everyday vocabulary, you may be unaware that many people bnd them misleading or even incomprehensible. Carefully trim these distractions from your talk. Explain abbreviations at the beginning of your talk, if you feel the unabbreviated names are too long-winded, but include the full name from time to time to remind listeners of it.
I’ve included this section because I believe that speakers can often be unaware that they habitually use imprecise words and hackneyed phrases which are boring to the listener.
Here is an example of what I mean:
“I’m absolutely delighted that so many of you could come here tonight as it’s raining cats and dogs outside, but at least it’s warm and snug in here. I’ve been asked to speak to you tonight and I don’t mind telling you that I’m a bundle of nerves and I hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew.
“I know I can depend on your support so I won’t mince matters. Let s face it, things often get worse before they get better. So not to put too fine a point on it, I’m going to ask you to stick it out. From the bottom of my heart, I appeal to you to put yourselves in my shoes at this point in time. Is this a fate worse than death? I can safely say I think it is, so without further ado, I’ll leave you with this thought as I beat a hasty retreat, better safe than sorry.”
Of course no one would include so many cliches, but it’s often easier to use a familiar phrase than to find a more original expression. Try to avoid cliches which have ceased to have an impact —if you don’t, your listeners will find you uninspiring and may eventually stop listening. It takes time to be creative and imaginative, but if you invest in a dictionary of synonyms you’ll find that your speech will become lively and entertaining and you won t need to worry about boring your audience.
• Announce the structure, i.e., where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.
• Summarize and recap frequently, i.e., how far you’ve traveled so far and where you’ve been.
• Identify each point clearly, i.e., landmarks of your journey.
• Use rhetorical questions to regain the audience’s attention, i.e., signposts.
• Use examples and personal stories which are relevant to the audience, to illustrate your ideas, i.e., describe the beauty spots.
• Summarize the main points and ask for action, if necessary, before you conclude, i.e., recalling the landmarks.