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Speaking Persuasively
Introduction
There are three things that never return: the spoken word, the spent arrow, and the lost opportunity.
WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR
A survey conducted in the United States revealed that the greatest fear human beings face is the fear of public speaking. It is greater than the fear of loneliness. It is greater than the fear of snakes. It is greater than the fear of death. If you are one of those human beings who wishes to convert the adrenalin produced by this fear into excitement, this book is for you. It is your opportunity to read and to understand simple ideas for practice. It is your opportunity to stop fearing and start feeling good, perhaps great, about facing a ‘public’ and speaking.
And this book is for you who realize that speaking is one of the most powerful means of influencing others in business and in life: you who realize that leading others is about understanding and practicing persuasive speaking. And for you who want to make the most of your speaking opportunities, to make the best of your career or business ventures, to influence your professional or political credibility, or simply to further your study.
WHY WE DECIDED TO WRITE IT
In the past ten years we have seen presentations in our consultancy that have highlighted the need for a book to help executive speakers (and we use executive as a generic term for all those who are and all those who aspire to be) to make the most of their speaking opportunities. Our successes in transforming fearful, and often uninteresting or even incoherent speakers into focused and interesting performers inspires us to write with confidence, to share with you a ‘kitbag of knowns’ to carry into your world of speaking opportunities. We speak of a ‘kitbag of knowns’ because there are some quite straightforward techniques which we can teach you to use so that you can become an expert and powerful speaker.
Recently, we were asked to help a group of scientists prepare for an important short presentation to the federal government and this need was highlighted once again; we discovered a lack of expertise and a lack of experience which became a lost speaking opportunity. This is something we have seen so often, even in the highly educated, thus highlighted that the development of this expertise is a gap in our education system. We hope that this book can help to fill this gap and contribute to Australia becoming the ‘clever country’ it aspires to.
As formal speaking is not an area of strength in the Australian education system, those of us with training have relied heavily on American texts or on the influence of the more formal discipline of school debating. The groups of scientists in question were certainly deprived of both. They fled into a boring presentation, reading sections of their written submission from overhead projections. Their presentation was packed with material containing procedural, methodological and legislative language. It was most difficult, even for us as paid listeners, to maintain concentration.
Watching a presentation like this can make a visit to the dentist seem like a high point in your day. Those precious ten minutes to persuade the Minister and his representatives of the superiority of the scientists’ ‘accreditation procedure’ were ten minutes of frustration. Frustration enough, perhaps, to destroy the credibility of their case. None of us can afford to lose such an opportunity. With our help, these presenters realized that reading from overhead transparencies was really not the most stimulating way to ensure the Minister understands of and commitment way to procedures they were there to ‘sell’.
As we watched the scientist, we thought of the many similar cases we had encountered in the past ten years of consulting to those who wanted to improve their executive speaking. Both in London and Australia, it has always been clear to us that the lost speaking opportunity is both tragic and pandemic.
We are reminded particularly, of a marketing director of one of the world’s largest construction corporations, who believed that showing seventeen slides of his corporation’s buildings in twenty minutes was a suitably winning presentation. It was no surprise to us when feedback from the corporations’ market research suggested that it was seen by its public as cold and faceless...
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