If you are about to take the microphone and give a presentation or speech, know that there are techniques that can make your speech more lively. Otherwise, you could quickly lull your audience to sleep. What are the basic best practices for delivering an effective speech?
Attention span is very limited
According to an announcement from Samsung in early December, our attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds since 2000. By the end of the decade, we can expect the maximum length of a music track to be an average of two minutes. More generally, culture adapts to our capabilities and thus exacerbates the problem. So, for the conference, the speaker will need good practices to gain attention.
Start with a personal anecdote
The start of your conference sets the tone for the rest. The double advantage of starting a personal anecdote is on the one hand that it puts you in the comfort zone (that of your memory) and on the other hand that it can leave an impression. All you have to do is find an anecdote related to your daily conference and simply tell it. You can say something that happened to you in the morning or an interesting thought that occurred to you that morning. Don’t hesitate to mark it on paper to summarize it well and create highlights. It’s not about spending too much time on it, it’s about coming up with a strong hook from the start.
Regularly appeal to the public
If your speech has to last more than a few minutes, you will have to wake up your audience, who will lose concentration very quickly. It is known that you can only concentrate for a few minutes in order to wake up the audience. For example, you can say: “I don’t know what the public thinks? Or what do you think? Have you ever had this, this experience? ยป. You can even have audience interaction to make sure you get maximum attention and make the conference interactive. Anyone can think that you could bring in another person from the audience and so they will keep their attention so they don’t get caught out for not listening.
Stop slides that are too long
There are some people who write absolutely everything they want to say on the slides. He forgets that if people just wanted to read, they wouldn’t need you. Your slides are only made to support your talk or remind you of your benefit ideas. Therefore, it is about putting a minimum of words with big pictures. So avoid slides that are too busy so you don’t focus attention on them. It is very difficult to read and listen to you at the same time. Likewise, if you have notes, you should only include the key words, not the entire speech. It can be very difficult to navigate a long text when you are in the middle of a speech.
Silence can be golden
If silence is often uncomfortable for you when you intend to speak, it may be necessary to start speaking, especially if you see that the room is full of commotion. Making sure you stay quiet for a few seconds before you speak increases attention to your first words. Sometimes you just need to wait a bit so that attention is at its maximum and the noise level is at its lowest. So why not enjoy it?
Prepare your transitions
When a topic has several strong ideas, know that most of your listeners will not be able to retain more than 3 strong ideas. It’s often even recommended to have just one to make an impression. If you can’t limit yourself to one message, make transitions in advance. These are the key moments that will emphasize your intervention and must win over your audience. You can use humor for this (as long as it’s really funny). Be careful because the latter is not universal.
Do not remain static
There are times when this is not possible, but in most procedures you can move around and not necessarily stay seated in your seat. This way you can fill the space and make your intervention more attractive. Ideally, you should put yourself in an open position from the start. If you are in a closed position with your arms crossed, you will try to stay that way throughout the procedure. So think carefully about your starting position. The more open you are in the beginning, the more your body will tend to move naturally.
Smile!
If you start your speech in a dull and cheerless tone, it will not encourage people to listen to you. Do not hesitate to smile even when you are not speaking or to laugh at a joke made by another speaker, for example. However, one should not exaggerate. It’s about being seen as likable, but not necessarily eccentric.
Put someone in the room
Your different interventions will have more or less impact on your audience. Sometimes it can be difficult to know how the audience will react to one of your interventions. Don’t hesitate to put someone in the audience who can observe the audience’s reactions to your speech. It can also spot sentences that had a positive and negative effect. Thanks to this, you will be able to improve during your interventions, especially if the subject is a redundant subject. This person can also ask the first question if you end up having a Q&A session.
Break the beat.
If your intervention needs to be long, for example, placing a video in the middle can create relevant time, or simply inserting a few slides can be wise. It’s not about the videos being too long, it’s about breaking the rhythm. This is how you create moments that will allow you to re-create attention. You can also break the rhythm with an anecdote so that you return to the main topic afterwards.
Dramatize your intervention
Body gestures are just as important as your tone. Additionally, people remember very little of what is said in terms of content and we convey most of our messages indirectly through our posture and tone. The same sentence will not have the same meaning depending on your posture. You can even take acting lessons if you want to feel more comfortable in front of an audience and take positions that are in line with your message.