3 ways to become a better speaker/presenter/communicator

Want some quick tips that you can start incorporating right away to become a more engaged and confident speaker or presenter?

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1) Avoid filler words!
Filler words do not add any impact or meaning to the message you’re trying to convey.
For example: If someone is asking what a bag of chocolate is. Which of the two options sound better?
a. So this bag of chocolates is uhh* milk chocolate pralines…umm*…filled with milk cream and you know*, cereals.
b. This bag contains delicious milk chocolate pralines filled with milk cream and cereals.

Option B wins! Option A has 3 filler words (‘uh’, ‘um’, and ‘you know’) and it takes away from the whole message. When I hear filler words in meetings, I find myself counting how many times the speaker has used filler words rather than the message they’re trying to deliver…anyone else?

2) Eliminate upspeak.
This is something that one of my grad professors constantly brought up to our class (and so grateful he did). Upspeak is when you’re answering someone and you’re answering them in a manner that makes you sound like you’re posing them a question instead of answering them.

If someone were to ask me what kind of ingredients are in the chocolate, which of the two choices sound better?
a. This chocolate contains cocoa butter, whole milk powder, grain mix???
b. This rollerball has cocoa butter, whole milk powder, and grain mix.

Choice A sounds uncertain, unsure, and more asking rather than telling. B sounds more assertive and matter of fact. Avoid upspeak if you want to maintain your credibility — believe in yourself, YOU GOT THIS!

3) Make eye contact with your audience.
Whether you’re talking or listening, it’s important to show that you’re engaged, confident and that you care. If you’re addressing more than one person or a large crowd, don’t focus on looking at that one smiling face, make sure you look at each person for roughly 5-10 seconds or so. You don’t want to scan the room, shift your eyes quickly every two seconds and make you or your audience dizzy, but pace it according to what you’re saying and where your sentences end/begin. After you finish a sentence, you can better shift to another person, without fumbling and panicking over where you were in your sentence.

These are three simple tips that you can start incorporating today and/or improve upon! Thank you so much for reading/watching. I hope you found this to be helpful, if you found it helpful, I’d so love it if you could leave a comment, like and subscribe for more posts in the future! I do want to continue the conversation in the comment section below — would love to hear from you if there are any tips other folks could benefit from and which of these three tips you could see yourself improving upon?

Enjoy your weekend and chat soon,

Sylvia