This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Key Takeaways
- Dress simply and look like your audience. You want to feel as physically comfortable as possible.
- Keep your talk simple. Use shorter more impactful words familiar to the audience. Speak their language.
- Make fewer points for the audience to remember (two or three are optimal). Most people do not have the capacity to remember more than three points so why present more than they are capable of remembering?
- When you are going to make a key point to the audience, tell them what you are going to do. It is perfectly fine to say “This is a key point.”
- Paint pictures with your simple language. Successful radio announcers are capable of getting audiences to listen to someone they can’t see by the announcer’s ability to use words to paint a picture the audience can imagine. Paint pictures with your thoughts and ideas and words.
- Use stories, case studies, and examples to make your points (preferably contemporary ones and things that are familiar to your audience).
- Most audiences prefer to hear some stories about you, the speaker.
- Use power verbs instead of dull verbs. Make your sentences come alive. Power verbs are full of action and force. They make your words more dynamic and help you speak with passion.
- Smile when you speak.
- Speak slowly unless you intend to speed up for emphasis. Changing your pace is okay. Pausing is a powerful speaking tool; it generates tension, interest, and anticipation in your audience.
- Raising or lowering your head stretches or constricts your vocal cords and makes your voice pitch different (changes the pitch from a higher to a lower pitch). Knowing this allows you to control your pitch.
- If you are going give a toast, make it dignified and brief.