Delivering a boffo presentation requires an integrated package. Your credibility depends on it.
What do I mean by integrated? It is important to view your talk as an organic whole. For example, your message and body language must not only be strong, but congruent. All signals need to match.
Do You Really Love Your Kids?
Look at it this way. You wouldn’t tell your children you love them with a frown on your face. Why tell an audience how excited you are to be with them while speaking in a monotone?
Your audience will think you are trying to deceive them if you offer few gestures, talk too slow, or fail to move your head.
At the other extreme, they will dismiss you as too submissive if you overdo the smiling and nodding, speak with too high a pitch or too slow a rate, or blink profusely.
Strong Video Tools mean little if you ignore your message. Similarly, the most magnetic of messages will do you little good if your Audio Tools are weak.
Consistency Counts
What happens when you send inconsistent signals? It turns out that your nonverbal cues dominate. Moreover, when your verbal and nonverbal cues are harmonious, the power of your message is strengthened.
Think of a finely tuned orchestra. If you omit the violin section, there is not much of a symphony. If you leave out the brass, your performance shows no pizzazz. Setting aside the percussion section takes away the rhythm. Each segment of this communications ensemble — Video, Audio and Message — are vital to your communications success.
The key to improving your abilities lies in utilizing your strengths to the maximum and keeping vulnerabilities to a minimum. For example, some of us take more readily to utilizing emotion when we speak but are wardrobe challenged. If that describes you, bring out that emotion while keeping your wardrobe simple.
Here’s a Test
How can you assess your strengths? Check out the “Taking Inventory” exercise in Appendix B of The Truth About Public Speaking: The Three Keys to Great Presentations. It can heighten your performance in utilizing your nonverbal abilities. Taking Inventory allows you to gauge which of your Video items and which of your Audio items are strengths that you need to maintain, and which are challenges you may wish to sharpen.
Over time and with skilled advice, Taking Inventory can sharpen your skill level, in some cases dramatically.
I encourage you to take the assessment again in a few months and compare the results with your consultant (be they internal or external or, better yet, both). Compare the results to those you got today. You are likely to see that you have sharpened a few skills.
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