Many presenters tend to concentrate their preparation on getting the words just exactly right. However, researchers have demonstrated that most of the impact of your message comes from other aspects of your communication than just your words.
Whether they realize it consciously or not, your audience is assessing everything about you when you are speaking – not just your words, but your facial expressions, hairstyle and choice of footwear. They notice the nervous quaver in your voice and your shaking hands you’re trying to hide in your pockets. These details tell them a lot about how confident you are – and if you don’t seem confident in your message, they won’t be either.
What this really means is that your audience’s acceptance of your presentation will be heavily influenced by your control of your voice, attitude, and movement – the factors that make up your delivery skills.
Let’s look at how you can use both verbal and nonverbal cues to project a natural, powerful style, and deliver outstanding presentations.
By skillfully controlling and varying your voice, you can attract and hold interest, combat monotony, add emphasis, clarify meaning, and convey enthusiasm, warmth, concern, conviction and strength all attributes of the polished presenter.
The foundation of good vocal control is breath support. It takes breath support to project your voice with volume and confidence, and to avoid shouting, straining, or gasping for air. To adequately support your voice, breathe deeply to fill your lungs completely, and push your voice up from your diaphragm, the large muscle at the bottom of your lungs. Trained singers and those who have played wind instruments are familiar with diaphragmatic breathing, but most of us have to practice it; place your hand on your belly to feel the movement as the air comes in and goes out.
Don’t try to project with volume by pushing from your throat; this approach can lead to a squeaky or shrill pitch, cracking voice, and even strained vocal chords.
Keep in mind that nervousness during public speaking can lead to a rushed delivery. Speak in a calm, measured tone unless you are actively trying to generate or express excitement about a particular point. If you are at all jittery, make sure to talk slightly slower than you really feel comfortable. It will seem much slower to you than it will to your audience!
Vary the tone and pitch of your speaking voice to create interest and avoid a monotonous, droning effect. Use pauses and inflection to draw attention to important points and to express emotion. If your presentation lacks passion, conviction, enthusiasm or energy, your audience will become bored and tune you out. They can’t be expected to take interest in anything you don’t seem to have interest in yourself!
The attitude you exhibit to your audience has a lot to do with your physical appearance. To make a professional, polished, and confident impression, start with great posture – upright and balanced, but not stiff. Keep your head high, and your shoulders back but relaxed. When standing, keep your feet apart about the width of your hips or shoulders, and avoid locking your knees. Rather than shifting from foot to foot, keep your weight evenly balanced.
Facial expressions also go a long way. A worried or fearful expression may feel most natural, but won’t tend to promote confidence in your audience! Cultivate a pleasant, friendly facial expression and get used to smiling a lot. Keep in mind that people can tell the difference between a real smile and a fake one – it has to do with how much the eyes are involved. As mile that doesn’t crinkle the eyes isn’t seen as genuine.
Finally, and very importantly, make eye contact with your audience. Audiences feel more comfortable if you speak to them as individuals rather than as a faceless mass. Establishing eye contact has a number of benefits for you, too – it helps you develop rapport, monitor audience reactions, and break the audience down into smaller, more manageable units.
When making eye contact, don’t stare. Look at an individual for 3-5 seconds or a single sentence, then break and move to a different person. It may help your nerves if you focus on people who look interested or friendly, but don’t ignore anyone. Make sure to include all parts of the room, but don’t get stuck in a repetitious pattern.
If space allows, you can move around during your delivery, but if you change your location, do so deliberately – don’t just wander around. Return to your original position after making your point, and always avoid turning your back to the audience or walking away from them.
The other type of movement you may engage in is gesturing. Any hand movements should be both natural and deliberate; you can use gestures to emphasize points and to illustrate concepts such as size, shape, direction, intensity, or sequence.
Keep your hands and body posture “open” and gestures expansive to appear credible and confident. Don’t pin your elbows to your sides, and avoid “closed” hand positions like clasped hands or clenched fists, or hidden hands – whether behind your back or in your pockets. To the audience, it will feel like you’re trying to conceal something!
The Importance of Delivery Skills
Audience acceptance is enhanced by a natural, confident delivery style and positive body language. If your own nonverbal appearance or voice shows discomfort or lack of confidence, your audience tends to doubt your credibility and question or reject what you propose. Practice your delivery skills to ensure that your audience perceives you as someone worth listening to, and they’ll hear your message loud and clear!
Baker Communications offers leading edge Presentations Training solutions that will help we address the goals and achieve the solutions addressed in this article. For more information about how our organization can achieve immediate and lasting behavior change that leads to success during presentations in any setting, click here.
