Keep It Simple: I remember a weather forecaster who used to use the phrase “shower activity.” She’d say, “We should have some shower activity later today.” I understood that she was talking about rain but why not just say the word, “showers” or “rain?” Perhaps this evolved from seeing rain showers producing activity on the station’s radar. But the phrase, “shower activity” sounded very unnatural.

To sound like a normal person, use words that you would use with your friends and colleagues. If you wouldn’t normally say it in a professional setting, then don’t use it. Otherwise you will alienate your audience and look like someone who’s trying to impress rather than inform. Unlike Scrabble, you don’t get more points for using larger words.

Needless Details Derail: Some speakers need a filter on what comes out of their mouth because they love to talk and especially talk in tangents. This can be cute with a child but tiresome in adults. Make sure you stay focused on your point and how it ties in to your greater message. There’s nothing wrong with a well placed story but it has to fit the rest of your material. Otherwise, save the tale for another day.

Jargon Doesn’t Stand for Anything: There’s nothing worse than confusing your audience with terminology that they can’t understand. Nowadays so many of our everyday tasks come with a special vocabulary. While it’s familiar and tempting to launch into these words you need to limit their use. Think of it like this: If in the place where you’re talking, 95% of the audience knows where the bathroom is located at your business, then you can use as many acronyms and jargon as you like. Take a moment to explain the concept rather than leave people wondering what you’re talking about. Otherwise, they’ll tune you out quickly.

The difference between an effective presentation and one that is forgettable can be easily bridged if you focus on your words.

Posted by Janet Schlarbaum

Tip one. Add quotes at the beginning of your speech to get attention and listener interest. This is a great way to start your presentation because it gives you increased credibility.

Tip two. Quotes can be used when you give an example to illustrate your point. Use one from someone famous and successful. This gives your example more testimony.

Tip three. Use a quote that is relevant to your topic. For example if your speech is on computers only use a quote that is somehow linked to computers. The outcome of your speech will help keep what you have to say relevant and on track.

Tip four. Quality is better than quantity. Two well selected and relevant quotes are more powerful than eight poorly selected ones.

Tip five. A powerful yet simple resource is a book of famous quotations. Use it like a dictionary. Dip into it from every now and then. It will strengthen your speaking ability like a dictionary does.

Quotes make your public speaking more powerful. They make what you say more believable when you quote someone famous. Always mention who said the quote. Every good public speaker I know uses quotes. You can too. One extra public speaking tip is this one. Use at least one quote in every speech you make.

The reality is that people come to a presentation not to hear what you have to say, not to be impressed by your knowledge base. They’re actually there for your humanness. They want to see and hear information delivered by a human. They’re human. They know what it’s like. They want to see what value you can add to information that they could just as easily obtain by getting a copy of the handout.

The more spontaneous you can be, the less “practiced” you seem, the more likely you will come across as the genuine person you are and the more impact you will have on your audience. And when you learn to forget the fact that there’s 500 people out there, or 50 people, or even 5 people, because you’re only ever speaking to one person at a time, well, then, what you realize is that public speaking is no different from having a conversation across a lunch table. Speaking to a group never needs to be any different from talking to your colleague on the same topic.

Do you feel uncomfortable talking one-on-one to people? Most people don’t. Similarly, when you have a discussion with somebody about what’s going on at work, do you prepare for it for three or four hours ahead of time? Do you go into a lunch with a co-worker with a written set of talking points, and a practiced set of word tracks, or do you just kind of let things happen?

You will become a master of The Skills only when you convince yourself that you must approach your presentation not the least prepared way, but the least practiced way. You don’t want to be practiced, because it’s going to flatten out your delivery. A flattened delivery has less passion, and it’s passion that people come to feel and hear.

One last little bit of advice that you’ll begin to notice quickly as you observe people when they speak: people with The Skills know that when all else fails, smile.

If you can’t do any of the things that you’ve learned in your study of public speaking, if you can’t do anything else right, learn to smile. People who are known as great communicators know how effective just smiling can be. People in the audience are hard-wired from birth to be receptive to a smile – and thus more receptive to your message when you do.

Think about the first thing you do when you meet a little baby. “Oh, look. Isn’t she cute? Oh, look, [tickle, tickle] let me see a smile”.

We conducted presentation skills training for The World Bank some time ago, and the group was comprised of people from every continent except Antarctica. Whenever we talk about the way we equate eye contact with veracity, we always preface it by saying, in Western cultures, we assign a lot of value to eye contact because we equate looking people in the eye with telling the truth. Well, a woman from Kenya told us that in many cultures in Africa, a little bit of eye contact is a good thing. Too much eye contact is a bad thing.

She explained to the group that if you avoided eye contact when talking to somebody, they didn’t trust you. If you held eye contact too long, they would kill you. Evidently, the way that you ameliorate the threat from sustained eye contact is by smiling. So if you want to talk to somebody, have eye contact, but make sure that you smile. It disarms people. And when people are disarmed, they’re more receptive to your message.

In our design classes we demonstrate that human brains process different forms of information differently. Speech is a form that our brains don’t readily absorb. When we receive information in the form of speech or text or numbers or sequences, we don’t just absorb them at face value – our brain first filters the information before it stores it or acts on it. So there’s always a wall, there’s always a barrier up there.

You’ve got to overcome that barrier. One way you can do that is smile.