The Instant Speech is an easy-to-use format that makes you sound poised and professional, even when you’re speaking off the cuff (for example, at a job interview or during a Q&A).

Anatomy of an Instant Speech

If you’ve read my book, Speak Like Yourself…No, Really!, you already know that an Instant Speech has two elements:

• Your “Key Message,” which begins and ends the Instant Speech, and is the most important thing you want your listeners to remember; and
• Three topics, discussions, or arguments that support it (the “Supporting Points”).

Why three Supporting Points? I don’t know.

In fact, no one really knows why The Rule of 3 works.

We only know that groups of three — Love, honor, and cherish. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Of the people, by the people, for the people — convey a satisfying sense of balance and power to your listeners.

They confer a kind of credibility, as this next example shows.

An Instant Speech Can Make You “Scream for Ice Cream”

Here’s an Instant Speech that extols the virtues of my former favorite food, ice cream.

Try saying this out loud, and see if it sends you running to the freezer for a scoop:

Ice cream is the world’s most perfect food.

1. It comes in 400 flavors, to suit everybody’s taste;
2. It has more vitamins and nutrients than any of the other major food groups; and
3. It’s easy to carry, so you never have to be without it.

For all of these reasons, ice cream is the world’s most perfect food — and I hope you’ll go out and buy me some now!

Doesn’t that have a persuasive ring? Even if you’re not an ice cream addict, you probably noticed that:

• The key message is short and sweet;
• The three supporting points are nicely balanced; and
• The whole thing sounds credible, even though what it’s saying is not.

If the Instant Speech format can redeem this content, think what it could do for a real argument!

An Instant Speech Can Elevate Any Message!

Lest you think that Instant Speeches are just a goof, here’s one on a serious topic that’s very near and dear to my heart:

Anyone can improve their public speaking by following three important steps:

1. First, prepare your ideas, with an eye toward bringing value to your listeners;
2. Then practice delivering them out loud, being sure to sound like your best self.
3. Finally, when you present your speech, focus on connecting with the audience, and not on your fears about how they’ll react to you.

As you can see, it’s easy to improve your public speaking. Anyone can do it by following these three important steps.

In the ice cream example, above, the Instant Speech format lent gravitas (weight) to a topic that had none; and in this example, it makes a fairly weighty topic sound easier, more accessible.

Not bad for the same five-line system!

And the best thing is that, once you’ve mastered the Instant Speech format, it’s yours to enjoy and deploy as you choose.

Here’s how:

To Master the Instant Speech Format, Make Lots of Instant Speeches

Instant Speech opportunities are everywhere, once you start to look for them. You can:

• Make them with your friends, your family, and colleagues at work.
• Use an Instant Speech to argue for the movie you want to see…  to tell your kid to finish his homework…  or to thank someone for a thoughtful gift.
• And, most importantly, use the Instant Speech format to think through a presentation before you start writing a script or working on your PowerPoint.

The more you make Instant Speeches, the more they’ll start to roll off your tongue.

Which means, in turn, that when you get hit by something unexpected — whether it’s a media interview or a request to “say a few words”  — you’ll know exactly what you should do next:

1. Decide on your Key Message;
2. Choose 3 points or topics to support it; and
3. Deliver your Instant Speech with confidence.

Enjoy!

And for lots more detail about Key Messages, Supporting Points, how to put them together and how to expand an Instant Speech into a presentation of any lengths, check out Chapters 4-7 of Speak Like Yourself… No, Really! Follow Your Strengths and Skills to Great Public Speaking.

***

Periodically, someone will call to ask me if I do “accent reduction coaching” — in other words, can I make their accents go away?

As it happens, I don’t do that kind of coaching; but more importantly, I’ll usually ask why they’re interested. And the caller will generally say,

“Well, I have an accent, and I’m concerned that this will diminish my business prospects.”

I generally notice, and share, two things with the caller:

1. You speak English more eloquently than I do; and
2. Accent notwithstanding, I understood everything you just said.

This being the case, you might wonder why the person I’m talking to thinks that he or she has a problem.

I wonder that same thing.

Americans Are Linguistically Spoiled. Is That Your Problem?

I once had a client — a young man from India — who apologized to me for his “poor” English. English, he explained, was his fifth language (the other four were languages spoken in his native India), and he just didn’t feel as fluent in it as he did in Hindi, Bengali, and the two local dialects he’d grown up speaking.

While his apology was utterly sincere, I felt like crawling under the table. I thought:

You speak five languages. I speak one. And you’re apologizing to me???  What’s wrong with this picture?

we benefit from English being the world’s technical language

What’s wrong with the picture is, of course, that — like most Americans, who benefit from English being the international language of business and technology — I’m spoiled.

I expect the world to come to me, linguistically, and so far it has.

But occasionally, there is an American who, rather than being grateful for this extraordinary boon, will choose instead to judge those who haven’t fully mastered our knotty and convoluted native tongue.

My feeling is, if you don’t like how Person X is speaking English…  go ahead and talk to them in their language!

What’s that??  You don’t speak Bambara?  Or Czech? Or Mandarin? Or even French, Spanish, or German!??

Astounding!

OK, Seriously…  You Need to Make Yourself Understood in English

Levity aside, the people who call me do have a real problem:

In order to be successful here, they need to make themselves clearly understood in English.

Speaking well and being understood are the prerequisites for business and personal success in any language — and here, that language is “American.”

The difficulty arises, though, when people think that their accent is what gets in the way of being understood.

to be heard more easily, articulate more clearly

On the contrary: Nine times out of ten (by my less than scientific count), the speaking habits that prevent non-native speakers of English from being understood are the same ones that can make native speakers of English hard to understand.

These include:

• Speaking too fast
• Slurring or mumbling words
• Saying things that are disconnected, or poorly organized
• Not knowing what point you’re trying to make
• Not leaving time for the listener to absorb one idea before rushing on to the next (see “speaking too fast”), etc.

Notice that there’s nothing here about accents.

In fact, if accents were an insurmountable issue, people from Boston, MA (my home town) wouldn’t be able to converse with their colleagues from Mobile, AL.

It’s possible that people from North Jersey wouldn’t be able to communicate with people from South Jersey!

We all have accents — the exceptions being airline pilots, telemarketers, and National Public Radio announcers — and yet we somehow manage to communicate around them.

Even as a non-native speaker of English, you can do the same.

The Rules for Speaking Clearly Apply to Everyone

Once you’ve identified the problem as speaking clearly rather than speaking without an accent, the steps to take are both simple and universal (in other words, applicable to native English speakers as well as people who just arrived in the U.S. last week).

All of these tips are common sense. And each of them can be practiced in just a few minutes a day, while you’re going about your life.

In fact, practicing for a few minutes every day is the best way to master any public speaking skill.

So think of this as a minor make-over rather than a surgical intervention.

With that in mind, here are my best tips for speaking clearly (this graphic, by Kit Maloney,  is from a presentation I’m delivering in June 2013 to the Creative Freelancer’s Conference in San Francisco):

See how that works?

Audibility (the quality of being easily heard) is all about how you feed your thoughts to the listener — not about the particular way that you pronounce sounds (except for pronouncing whatever sounds you make clearly!)

And one more thing:

Time Will Take Care of Your Accent “Problem”

There are two senses in which this is true:

First, the longer you live and work in the U.S., the more you will acclimate to the way we speak. Differences in phrasing, pronunciation, and dialect that may loom large for the first year or two will gradually fade away as you adjust to an American dialect.

Second, as time goes on, more and more Americans are going to “get with the program” and learn how to talk to people who weren’t born here.

We will have to do that, because Americans who only converse with (or do business with) other native-born Americans will soon be going the way of the dinosaurs. That’s because the “classic” American — white, Protestant, of European descent — is now a minority in the U.S.

To succeed in the near future, we will all need to communicate with people of widely varying ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and languages.

That’s the future, and it’s not too soon to start practicing for it now.

Keep Your Focus on Being Understood

Let’s return to that reality check we started with:

• The test of whether you’re speaking well is not some abstract standard of all-American perfection.
• The test of whether you’re speaking well is whether or not you’re being understood.

Or, to quote “Jezra’s First Law,”

If you’re talking and they’re listening, you must be doing it right. [tweet this]

Got that?  Your accent might be a distraction, but your red shirt might be, too.

So focus on your audience…   monitor their reactions to be sure they understand your ideas…   and do everything in your power to speak clearly, whatever the sound, flavor, or rhythm of your speech!

That’s the way to get people to listen.

And that’s the true measure of public speaking success.

Quick, get me out of this speech!

We’ve all experienced the fight, flight or freeze response. It’s an automatic (and autonomic!) reaction to perceived danger that can  flood our systems with adrenaline for fighting, send us running for the hills, or make us freeze up and stop breathing.

It’s obvious that not breathing could make it difficult to deliver a presentation; but the flight part of this reaction can also be an issue for public speakers.

Public Speaking Can Make You Want to Run!!

The pull to run from something scary can feel almost overwhelming. And when that something is a speech that you’re delivering, it’s natural to feel like racing to the end so you can get it over with as quickly as possible.

The catch is, that “natural” reaction is unfair — to you, to your audience, and to your ideas.

So here’s a perspective, and some tips, to help you savor each moment of your speech instead of hurtling toward the finish line.

Great Public Speakers Stay in the Present

Like a river, your speech is fluid, ever-changing.

Just like that proverbial river that you can never step into twice because it’s always different, every moment of public speaking is unique and new.

Even if you’ve spoken on a topic time after time after time after time, you’ve never spoken about it this time.

You’ve never spoken about it in this room, at this hour, in this light, with this group of people, and in this frame of mind.

Likewise, no matter how many times you’ve given a speech, this audience has never heard it before.

Your speech is a unique, irreplaceable event — which means that each moment of it deserves full honors.

Give Every Moment of Your Speech Its Due

The key to giving proper attention to every moment of your speech is to know what moment you’re in. You may even want to give yourself a play-by-play, like:

I’m presenting my key message…  I’m telling a funny story…   I’m discussing my second supporting point…   I’m getting ready to wrap up…  etc.

Focusing on what you’re doing right now counteracts the all-too-common view that your speech is a single, unbroken, endless, exhausting expanse of words that you have to “get through.”

It also gives you, at the end of each section, a natural place to pause, relax, regroup, and start fresh.

Of course, it’s easier to work this plan if you…

Give Your Speech a Clear Structure

Since you don’t want to view your speech as an endless flow of words, don’t create it as one.

Speeches are often constructed by stringing one point after another, until the well of points to be strung together runs dry.

Instead, do yourself a favor and start with something like the Instant Speech framework, so that you can build pauses, repetition, transitions, and clearly defined sections into your speech from the start.

Practice Your Speech in Mixed-Up Sections

Just as creating a speech that has one endless flow will push you toward delivering it that way, so will practicing your speech from beginning to end, from beginning to end, from beginning to end with no variations.

So practice your speech’s individual sections — and then go further and mix them up. I drill my speaker coaching clients like this:

• Tell me the story about your boss
• Now deliver your second supporting point
• Do the section before your close
• OK, now do your attention grabber
• Do your transition from X to Y
• Now do your third supporting point…

Believe me, after enough of that, you can focus on any part of your speech, and you know how each part differs from the others!

Your Audience Will Keep You in the Moment

When you finally present this speech, let your audience help you stay focused.

They are reacting to everything you say — and if you free some attention to note that reaction, you’ll find yourself reacting back.

• They’ll smile. You’ll smile.
• They’ll gasp. You’ll nod.
• They’ll look puzzled. You’ll repeat, or elaborate, your point, or even ask if they’re following.

Noticing this dynamic will help you get totally in the moment, relating to both your audience and your speech in a way that’s fresh, authentic, and rejuvenating.

And isn’t that more fun than fight, flight, or freeze?

***

But it does have its limits. For instance,

You Can’t Make People Think Anything

Lots of my clients show up saying things like,

I want them to think I’m intelligent,

I have to impress people,

They need to understand my point.

This is asking for the moon, because you can’t control someone else’s thought process. You can do your best to sound intelligent, to deliver an impressive presentation, or to get your point across — but forget about making it happen, because nobody communicates that well!

Even if you speak “perfectly,” your listeners will choose their own reactions and form their own conclusions.

That’s a good thing to accept.

The Public Speaking Reality Grid

One of the best ways to appreciate the relationship between performance and outcome (“how you do” versus “what you get”) is to think about a job interview.

Every job interview is different, and the experience can be nuanced and complex.

But when you strip away all the specifics, there are really only four things that can happen:

Speeches are less binary than job interviews, which have only two possible outcomes, but the principle holds:

Sometimes there will be a clear correlation between your “performance” and how the audience reacts.

And sometimes there won’t be.

Let the Public Speaking Reality Grid Help You Relax

The newsflash that we can’t control other people’s reactions might seem discouraging on the surface. After all, why sweat and slave to produce a high-quality speech when there’s no guarantee that it will be well received?

But I find the reality grid strangely comforting.

The two “AND” options, in which the outcomes more or less aligns with your performance, are what we generally expect to happen:

• I was great!  Success, reward, kisses, hugs!! 
• Or:  Boy, that sucked. The polite silence was deafening.

And the “BUT” option in which you do well but get a cool reception can also makes a certain cock-eyed sense if you tend to judge yourself harshly.

Which leave the fourth option — the one in which you get more than you feel you may have strictly “deserved.”

This can be unnerving for speakers who focus on their every flaw (and think the audience should do the same). But try to think of it this way:

Isn’t it great when people cut you some slack?

Why Audiences are More Forgiving than You Are

It constantly shocks people to realize that their audience is on their side. Our dark fantasies — or memories — of being judged and found wanting can sometimes feel so all-encompassing that we forget the audience isn’t really there to judge us.

At worst, they’re in those seats because they have to be.

At best, they’ve shown up to learn from or enjoy our talks.

They’re happier when you succeed.

But trust me, very few people go out of their way to sit in an auditorium and send the speaker bad vibes.

It’s just not fun to watch someone flailing around trying to make a point that you couldn’t care less about. They would much rather watch you succeed.

So the beauty and the promise of the Public Speaking Reality Grid is that it reminds us of one saving fact:

• Even though you can’t control the way your audience reacts…
• And even though you can’t (by definition) give a speech that’s perfect from beginning to end…
• And even though the world is often unfair, and outcomes are sometimes cruel…
• Your audience is very likely to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Hopefully, understanding this will make you feel better about giving up control.

And once you’re able to give up control and trust your practice and preparation…

You’re way more likely to succeed anyway!

• Having your time cut at the last minute
• Finding out your easy audience is actually a tough crowd
• Listening as the person who speaks just before you makes make all the points you’d planned to make (and now what are you going to talk about??).

You might think that more experienced speakers avoid these twists and turns; but sometimes we don’t — and my latest detour came when I recently spoke to members of The Society of Women Engineers at Hofstra University.

In my own defense, I do try to find out everything I can about an audience, and I’d asked a lot of questions about this one beforehand. But I’d also spoken to SWE members last year, and, on that occasion, the crowd was 100% female.

So, without even noticing the assumption I’d made, I carefully prepared a speech for this audience that was:

• Oriented toward women
• Illustrated (exclusively!) by images of women
• Accompanied by handouts with advice for women

My first clue that I’d made a mistake came when I showed up at Hofstra and discovered that…   a third of the attendees were men.

Oops!

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

Illustration by Carol Goldberg, from SPEAK LIKE YOURSELF… NO, REALLY!, available in paperback and Kindle at http://amzn.to/QpQ7oA

Here’s where it would be really easy to panic and decide that everything you’ve prepared is no good and needs to get tossed.

Don’t rush to this conclusion!

For one thing, it’s almost always better to build your speech back from something — at minimum, your key message and supporting points.

And for another thing, as soon as your initial reaction passes, you’ll probably find that most of what you’ve got can work, with minor tweaks.

Change the Context of Your Speech

One simple tweak that you can make is to change the context of your speech — in other words, the framework within which people listen.

If I’d just given my speech at Hofstra without commenting on its female bias, the men who were listening might have thought,

Hey, what about me?? What does she think, the whole world’s made of women?

So my job was to change that context, which I did by speaking directly to the men:

Gentlemen, before I begin, I need to apologize.

I didn’t know that you were going to be here, and parts of the speech I prepared are oriented more toward women.

But even though it might look like I’m not talking to you, I hope you’ll put yourself into the picture — and as we go along, I’ll put you there, too.

Because women aren’t the only people who have trouble making our voices heard. In my experience, some of the groups who feel most judged when they speak include men who are:

• immigrants, or non-native English speakers
• people of color
• those who grew up poor or working class
• people with disabilities, and
• any man who feels marginalized, devalued, or outside the mainstream because of his culture, values, beliefs, or education.

If you belong to any of those groups, you won’t have any trouble finding yourself in what I’m about to say.

My hope was that, with this introduction, the men would be thinking.

OK, that’s a picture of a woman, but what she’s talking about includes me.

And this seems to have worked, because — as I went on with the speech — the men were avid and attentive listeners.

What About When You Do Have to Toss the Whole Speech?

OK, you can’t always cope with a minor tweak; or even with the types of surgical strikes I describe in this month’s newsletter.

So what do you do when you have to toss an entire script just minutes before taking the stage?

So far, this hasn’t happened to me, and I hope it never happens to you. But if it ever does, I suggest that you:

1. Open up a dialogue with the audience (“Before I begin my presentation, I’d like to know more about what this topic means to you…”)
2. Switch the topic to something of mutual interest (“So, now that I realize you don’t care about X, is there a communications topic that does interest you?”)
3. Look for a new key message — fast! Take the information your audience has given in 1. and 2. and look for the attitude or belief that ties it all together. Then check that with your audience. (“Am I correctly hearing that most of you think New York should secede from the USA?”). If they validate your new key message,
4. Pick three supporting topics that you think you can discuss at reasonable length, and then, finally,
5. Take the leap and start talking to people.

After all, you can’t do worse than you would have with your now-useless script, right? This may not be your most eloquent or slick presentation, but if you jump in with both feet, you can succeed.

Is There a “Rule of 3″ for How Much to Change a Script?

Of course! There’s a Rule of 3 for everything, so:

• If the information in your speech is right, but the context is off, change the context with an introduction that makes allies of your audience.
• If the structure of your speech needs changing, follow the tips in this month’s newsletter.
• And in the highly unlikely event that you have to throw out an entire speech, get the audience to educate you, and then create an Instant Speech — and trust that you’ll deliver it well.

in the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge

It’s no fun discovering that the speech you’ve prepared may not work; but with this Public Speaking Tip, it doesn’t have to be a disaster.

Just think of it as an off-road adventure like my recent one mudbugging in a Chevy — and look forward to the great story you’ll be able to tell!

Don’t Trust Your GPS in Georgia

As I write this, I am hiking — perhaps trudging is a better word — out of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. Just to set the stage:

I recently decided I needed a break. (Boy, did I need a break!)

So I flew down to Charleston SC, rented a car, and drove to Georgia to stay with an Air B&B host named Jonathan. Jonathan turned out to be a daredevil kind of guy — a former aeronautical engineer and former stripper who owns three motorcycles and rode one to Guatemala.

He made me nostalgic for my former life (the one echoed in my novel, The Tattooed Heart), and my last night there we stayed up late watching Patty Wagstaff aerobatics, wing suit BASE jumping, and Isle of Man bike racing videos.

Jonathan suggested that I check out the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge en route to my return flight in Charleston, SC. That sounded good, so I plugged it into my GPS and left early the next morning.

The Romance of the Road

In New York, I usually print out a map and study it before hitting the road.

Consequently, I’m kind of a GPS neophyte — and when my GPS pointed me down an unmarked dirt road, I didn’t at first realize that I should recalibrate. Once I realized, I didn’t want to.

you would drive across this, too, right?

The road was extraordinary.

I drove slowly and reverently through what felt like ancient forest.

I drove cautiously but happily over a series of wooden bridges, after checking to make sure they had steel underpinnings. (OK, the steel was rusty; but hey, the rental car was insured).

And — perhaps under the spell of the adventure videos I’d watched the night before — I drove fast and pretty skillfully through what started out as patches of mud but soon turned into deep, gooey ruts.

In fact, I drove my heart out, right up to the not-entirely-unexpected moment when my left front wheel sank down a foot, and there I was, in the forest, in a rental car, in my little Jones New York sweater, with no cell phone service or clear way to get out.

What Does This Have to Do With Public Speaking?

Here’s what:

Sometimes even the best-laid (or, in this case, not-so-well-laid-GPS) plans become obsolete. When that happens, I recommend that you:

• Resist panic and self-blame (if, like me, you’re inclined toward them);
• Assess your situation in simple, specific terms (this month’s newsletter gives several examples); and
• If necessary, lose your roadmap and come up with an alternative plan (which, by some wild coincidence, is the subject of Public Speaking Tip 15: Know When to Lose Your Script).

As for what happened in Georgia:

1. Although the AAA road service guy who showed up when I’d finally hiked back to “civilization” couldn’t tow the car, he took me to Frank & Linda’s Diner, an Italian restaurant run by two Bronx ex-pats that had great food;
2. The waitress at Frank & Linda’s explained to me that what I’d done was not just unoriginal (“You went mudbugging in a Chevy, hon!”) but was in fact a major local sport (see the video below);
3. The local tow guy my waitress recommended took me to meet the puppy farmer whose land I’d traversed; after gently lecturing me about being an idiot, the puppy farmer allowed as that I’d gotten three bridges farther than anyone else who’d done the same thing, which made me feel like an action movie star; and
4. Somewhere in between meeting all these folks, hanging out, eating, laughing, and getting towed out of the swamp by a Robot, I lost some of the fear of the South that was carefully bred into my New England bones.

This is not the day I’d planned to have when I set out from Jonathan’s just after dawn, but I’m glad to have had it, and I did learn one important thing:

If you’re going off-road, rent a car with four-wheel drive!

And if you’re still wondering what “mudbugging in a Chevy” means, check this out:

• Oprah Winfrey?
• Bill Clinton?
• Tony Robbins?

I think the world’s best communicator is “the baby.” Specifically, the baby you once were.

Here’s why:

Baby Communicators Make Themselves Heard

design by Kit Maloney

Think back to the last time you were around a screaming infant.

Chances are pretty good that every adult within earshot heard that baby’s voice, and got the message.

Because, while not every adult is fluent in “baby speak,” we all understand that a screaming baby needs something.

We also know that a baby wants our attention when she communicates by laughing, gurgling, or waving her arms.

It’s a pretty simple transaction: They ask, we respond. They speak, we listen.

What Baby Communicators Don’t Do Well

The list of things that babies, unlike us adults, don’t take into account when they communicate is long:

• Babies don’t apologize for wanting to be heard
• They don’t panic at the thought of being judged
• They’re not plagued with doubts about whether they’re smart, articulate, attractive, classy, or deserving enough to take center stage
• They don’t feel bad about imposing on others; as far as they’re concerned, that’s what other people are for

design by Kit Maloney

Since we adults do all of these things, and more, you have to wonder: What happened to that baby?

And of course, life happened: All the myriad frustrations, disappointments, experiences of being judged, shamed, ignored, found wanting, combine to persuade us that we better be pretty damned careful what we say. (And that’s the best-case scenario.)

So now the question is: How do we get that feeling of spontaneity and power back?

To be clear: An adult who takes the Baby Approach literally — routinely interrupting others, or demanding attention all the time — is a full-scale jerk, and I’m not suggesting you become one. But babies have plenty to teach us, metaphorically and physically, about how powerful we can be.

How Can Babies Scream All Day??

Babies are little screaming machines, and if you look at the pictures above, you’ll see why.

See that big, fat, round, firm belly?

The airflow into a baby’s body isn’t constrained by clothes (ties, belts, corsets, etc.) or ego (sucking in your stomach, or throwing out your chest, which locks your rib cage) or fear (stooping to make ourselves less visible).

Because of this, their bodies work, just as nature intended, like little air-pushing bellows (pictured left). The baby’s lungs open wide, sucking in air, and then his muscles force that air back out through the smaller, concentrated space in his mouth — carrying concentrated sound out with it.

It also doesn’t hurt anything that the baby is motivated! She knows that, if she screams long enough and loud enough, someone will probably come along to take care of her.

Now, we can’t show up at a speaking engagement half naked with our stomachs hanging out. But we can wear clothes that are comfortable. We can allow ourselves to breathe (start by breathing out; it works best). We can open our mouths to let the sound out.

And we can do more than that: We can work on our attitudes.

Public Speakers: Emulate the Baby You Use to Be

There’s a lot more to be said about this, step one is to begin to let go of the thoughts and feelings that hold you back.

Start by subjecting them to a reality check:

• People will judge me! Yes, the occasional person will judge you; but most audiences want you to succeed.
• I have to watch every word I say. Yes, we do have to watch what we say, at least in many work situations. But does that mean you can never speak spontaneously, as yourself? If you are never able to be yourself at work, the problem goes way beyond public speaking!
• I’m not smart / articulate / accomplished / attractive / rich / famous / witty / athletic / successful / or whatever enough; no one cares what I have to say. Everyone has moments of feeling this way. I call it the Same Old Shit. No matter what flavor, color, gender, accent, or nationality yours comes in, no matter how complex your story or pain, it’s still SOS to think that you’re less deserving than someone else of the basic right to communicate.

Next time you find yourself thinking this, go out and find a baby to hang with.

Check out the baby’s unselfconscious, unrestrained joy in being heard.

That’s what all of used to be like — and we can be like that again.

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Thanks to texting, voice mail is becoming less common. But until it disappears altogether, it’s to your advantage to know how to leave clear messages.

In fact, a phone message is sort of like a thank you note:  You can earn big respect by leaving a good one…  and lose points if your message is annoying or rude.

Before we talk about what I mean by “good messages,” here are three examples of messages that don’t work, and that make at least some people (like me!) grind their teeth:

1. The Dead-End Message

Someone recently left their number on my voice mail, and asked me to call them back.

When I did, I got a recording that said,

Hi, this is so-and-so. I never listen to these messages, so please send me an email.

Now I didn’t have her email address, and she didn’t offer it in her message, so that was the end of that story.

When you’ve called someone else (presumably because you want something), you can make it easy for them to respond by:

• Leave instructions that aren’t a dead end. If you leave a phone number that doesn’t have voice mail, specify that people should text. If you leave an email address, make sure it’s one you actually check!
• Even better, leave two ways for them to reach you in your original message, so that they can pick the one they like best.

On the other hand, don’t be so specific in your instructions that you end up leaving…

2. The “Call at My Convenience” Message

Here’s another type of message that asks you to jump through hoops:

Hi, this is so-and-so, and I’d like to speak with you about whatever-whatever. My number is X. You can reach me between 10:40 and 11:15AM or 3 and 4:30PM on Wednesday; between 4:30 and 5:50 on Thursday, and between noon and 2:45 on Friday.

Think about what this person is asking:

You’re supposed to take note of their schedule; plug it into your own already bulging calendar; and call them back at a time that he’s specified.

If it’s really critical that you two speak between those very particular hours, it’s better choices to:

• Send an email asking for an appointment, or
• Keep trying to phone them during the hours that you’re available. This way, you either catch them or you don’t, but at least the burden’s on you, not them!

3. The Information-Free Message

The messages above both asked too much of the listener, and the second one shared too much information (do we really need to know your entire schedule?).

But you can go too far in the other direction by leaving messages that have too little content, such as:

This is X. My number is Y. Call me back.

This type of cryptic message is fine for your friends, but not at work.

Businesspeople aren’t into guessing games; and many of them will just decide that, if you don’t have time to explain why you called them, they don’t have time to call you back.

To Leave a Good Phone Message, Speak Slowly, Clearly, and Repeat

So exactly what does make a phone message work?

As with most things in public speaking, your goal should be to make it easy for the other person to understand you — or in this case, to reach you and start a conversation.

The most basic way to achieve this goal is to make sure that what you say is audible, meaning: It can be heard!

To that end,

• Speak slowly and clearly.
• Pause between each thought.
• Spell out whatever isn’t obvious (like the name of your company, which you know but they don’t!)
• Repeat your own name and number (or the other contact info they should use to reach you) twice.

And remember: Speaking slowly and clearly, with pauses, is even more important when you’re calling on a cell phone, because the sound they produce is already harder to hear.

And what about your actual message?  My go-to phone message sounds like this:

Hi. (pause) My name is Jezra Kaye. (pause) That’s J-E-Z-R-A, and my last name is K-A-Y-E. (pause) I’m calling about the bicycle you’re selling. (pause) If it’s still for sale, please call me at 123-456-7890.  (pause) That’s 1-2-3 (pause) 4-5-6 (pause) 7-8-9-0. (pause) Again, this is Jezra Kaye, calling about the bicycle, and I’ll try you again later. (pause) Have a great day.

As this example shows, a good phone message is a “paint by the numbers” exercise, where you fill in each pre-determined step with color. (This is true for good thank you notes, too.)

Here are the steps I try to follow. Adjust them for your own language, style, and situation, and you’ll be good to go from now on!

STEP 1: State Who You Are and What You Want

Here are some examples taken from my world that could easily be repurposed for your situation:

• My name is John Doe, and I’d like to know more about your speaker coaching services.
• You don’t know me, but I got your number from my friend Jane Doe. She thinks you’d be a good keynote speaker for my organization’s conference in June, and I’d like to talk to you about that.
• Hi, my name is Doe. I need to speak with you really soon because I have to give a speech in 10 days and I just realized I have no idea what I’m doing!!

STEP 2: Make It Easy For Your Listener to Respond

While you’re making it easy for your listener by leaving clear information about how to reach you, also let them know that you’ll keep trying to make the conversation happen:

• If you’re able to call me back tonight, I’ll be working until 10. Otherwise, just call me at your convenience.
• Here’s my number, in case you have a chance to call; and I’ll try you again tomorrow.
• I’m going to be hard to reach this week, but if there are times that are good for you, let me know and I’ll call you back then.

STEP 3: End With an Appreciation

When you’re the person who wants something (in this case, you want to reach the other person), it’s important to let them know that you appreciate whatever effort they can make. You can do this in a whole range of ways, from simple to elaborate, by saying:

• Thanks!
• Thank you for getting back to me.
• I know you’re busy, and I appreciate you taking the time to call me back.

To Leave a Great Phone Message, Smile!

People can hear you smile!

A mouth that’s frowning produces different sounds than a mouth that’s smiling. And, whether they know it consciously or not, people can hear from the sound of your voice whether you were smiling when you left a message.

Wouldn’t you rather return a call to someone who’s smiling than someone who’s frowning? Me, too!

So, smile when you leave a phone message, because your smile is a message, too.

But as a well-rounded public speaker, you need to be able to do more: You need to listen to your audience.

Can You Listen to an Audience?!! 

In some ways, listening to an audience is the same as listening to an individual.

In other ways, it’s quite different.

Which brings us to the question of whether an audience is:

• A big bunch of people who happen to be in the same place at the same time; or
• A unique entity that’s bigger than (or at least different from) the sum of its parts?

You know how to talk to 3 or 4 people.

I’ve argued the first point — that there’s no such thing as a big audience, just an additive (1+1+ 1+1, etc.) collection of individual people.

And, in fact, when you’re talking to an audience, your best strategy is to treat them as if they’re a group of individual friends. This approach means that you speak to a “big” group with the same casual language and relaxed eye contact you’d use if you were talking to, let’s say, a group of 3 or 4.

In that case, you would look at one person and say something. Then you’d look at someone else and add your next point. You’d look at someone else, and add the thought after that one. Etc.

This is exactly the right way to talk to an audience; but is it the best way to listen?

Measuring “The Mood of the Crowd”

Have you ever noticed that, in their  stories about a particular event, reporters often mention the mood of a crowd. Consider these headlines:

“Excitement in Argentina as Pope sworn in” (Jerusalem Post)

“Folk singer shocks concert crowd” (NY Daily News)

“McCain faces angry crowd, defends immigration plan” (Christian Science Monitor)

How do the Jerusalem Post, the NY Daily News, and the Christian Science Monitor know these things?

The reporter and headline writer haven’t spoken to every single person in the crowds they’re describing, yet we credit their generalized impressions of what people are feeling.

Why?

Probably because our own experience confirms that crowds can have moods — and that an excited crowd feels very different from one that’s shocked or angry.

When you “listen” to an audience, you are assessing its mood over time.

Noticing if people are engaged and excited — and noticing if that seems to change.

So How Do You ”Listen” to an Audience?

In Tip #12, I noted that you have to STOP and LOOK before you can LISTEN.

The same thing is true here.

If you’re slogging through your speech with your head down, like a marathoner trudging up that last brutal hill, you’re not going to be able to notice the mood of your audience.

(In fact, you’re not going to notice much of anything.)

But if your speech includes frequent pauses — frequent opportunities to kick back, even for a second, and look at the audience — you will see and hear things that convey what your audience is thinking.

For example:

• Are people looking at you intently? They’re probably engaged with what you’re  saying.
• Are they sitting forward in their seats, or holding their bodies in an alert way? They’re probably trying to catch your every word.
• Are they quiet, and do they seem focused?  Congratulations! Your audience wants to take in, and remember, what you’re saying.

Of course, the opposite can also be true. If people are noisy, inattentive, slouching, or looking anywhere but at you, they probably don’t care about what you’re saying.

Or else, they’re just The Audience From Hell.

And while that’s every public speaker’s worst nightmare (“What if they don’t listen?”), knowing how they feel is better for you than not knowing. It gives you a chance to make changes, such as:

• Using more direct language, or talking more specifically about them;
• Wrapping up the point you’re on, in hopes that your next point interests them more; or even
• Cutting your presentation short, because sometimes things just don’t work out.

Still Not Sure What Your Audience is Saying? ASK THEM!

If your speaking engagement is truly formal  — the State of the Union address, let’s say, or closing arguments in a multi-billlion court case — you’ll want to ignore this advice.

But most of the time, it’s actually OK to ask an audience how they’re doing.

I’m not talking about the pro forma “Hey, how y’all doing?” that is often used to warm up a crowd, but a real and sincere question that asks for information, such as:

“Is this making sense to everyone?”

“You all got that point, right?”

Or even, “Folks, you’re looking a little blank. Is everything OK?” (I asked that one, once, and an audience member yelled out, “Yeah, we’re thinking!”)

Admittedly, quizzing the audience on how you’re doing takes a lot of confidence, or sometimes desperation.

But the point is that, if the mood ever strikes, you’re allowed to do this. There is no secret rule book that says you have to maintain an impenetrable speaker / audience barrier.

In fact, Public Speaking Tip 6 talks about how audiences love it when you “break the fourth wall” (the theater term for this maneuver), and how this can help you recover from a mistake — think about how Jennifer Lawrence recovered after she tripped at the Oscar’s, by simply acknowledging what had happened.

And it’s fine to use this technique when you need help in hearing your audience.

So What’s the Take-Away for Your Next Presentation?

Listening is a key part of successful part of public speaking — and that’s true whether you’re talking to one person, ten, or a thousand.

To listen well, you must first STOP spinning your own wheels, and LOOK at the people in front of you.

Usually, you’ll be able to pick up their mood. But when that fails, and you really want to know, ask them.

Just like individuals, audiences will appreciate the effort you’re making to connect with them, and take their mood into account.

Everything!

I’ll bet you’ve been in a situation where someone talked and talked and talked at you, without regard for your reaction.

Typically, this might have been:

• A telemarketing call, where the marketer insisted on reading every word of his script;
• At a business meeting where the speaker droned on and on without noticing that her audience was asleep; or even
• During a conference or networking event, where the person you were trying to talk to spent 10 minutes pitching herself before asking anything about you.

Whatever the occasion, did being talked at non-step encourage you to listen more carefully?

I don’t think so!

In general, we listen to people who listen to us.

Not Listening is a Big Mistake

For many people, being a public speaker and a careful listener don’t go together.

I think that’s because public speaking makes us nervous — and we all tend to listen less when we’re nervous or under stress.

Yet, ironically, when we’re speaking up for ourselves, our organizations, or our ideas, we need to listen more, not less.  Only by listening can we discover:

• Who we’re talking to;
• What they find of interest or importance; and
• How our goals and interests overlap with theirs.

Now, there is one caveat:  If you never do anything but listen to others — women, introverts, shy guys, I’m talking to you!! — ignore this advice. Instead, work on making strong, proactive statements about yourself, your business, and your successes.

But if, like most of us, you sometimes find yourself monopolizing the floor, that’s exactly the time to take a step back and begin listening to the people around you.

How do you do that, when you’re talking full tilt?

• The best way is to stop talking as soon as you come to the end of your current thought. It helps to literally shut your mouth.
• Or, if  you like self-deprecating humor, you can trail of with a rueful comment, like:

And then I told him that if we didn’t get more people signed up before July 14th, I was going to…  oh, you know, blah-blah-blah.

For Great Public Speaking, Learn to Stop, Look, and Listen

You may have been told as a child, to stop, look, and listen for traffic before you step off a curb into the street.

That’s also good advice for public speaking.

STOP.  One big difference between introverts and extraverts is how quick we are to jump into speech.

This isn’t a matter of social skill, but a reflection of the fact that, for extraverts, thoughts are most real when they’re spoken out loud; whereas introverts like to hold our ideas close.

Whichever of those preferences you favor, a slight pause before you jump in will give you a chance to assess the other person — and maybe find out that they want to speak first!

LOOK. In mainstream U.S. culture, we signal our interest in another person by making eye contact.

As a bonus, when you’re looking carefully, it’s easier to pick up information — such as whether or not the other person is interested in what you’re saying — that makes the conversation go better.

If you’re very shy, or were raised in a culture where direct eye contact is considered rude, this can be really hard. But the truth is that all of us can get better at making eye contact by practicing a little bit here and there.

Just remember: Your goal with eye contact is to actually observe the other person, not to hit them with a frozen, wooden stare.

LISTEN. This one is tough enough to get its own section:

You Can Listen More Effectively (We All Can!)

Listening is really hard work — as any audience member will tell you — but it’s also a skill, like any other, that can be developed in small increments.

Here are some tricks that will help you listen better:

1. Quiet your own internal voice.

Most of us have (to quote presidential speechwriter William Safire) a nattering nabob of negativity in our brains — a voice that delights in telling us that we’re not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, blah-blah-blah.

Buddhists call this internal chatter monkey mind. Freud called it your superego. In my book on public speaking, Speak Like Yourself… No, Really!, I call it your nasty little self-critical voice.

It can be very hard to hear other people when that voice is jabbering at you.

So try to ignore it, by any means necessary, and concentrate on what the person you’re talking to is saying.

To help you do this…

2. Silently repeat what the other person says

I find it helps me to focus if I silently repeat what I’m hearing; for example:

She works in finance. She does some kind of research. She’s bored with her job and wants to find a new one with more responsibility…

In a business meeting or other  situation where you must retain what’s being said, you may also want to state what you heard and get confirmation:

Tell me if I’m hearing you correctly: You said that if we don’t re-do this campaign from top to bottom, at our own expense, you’ll take your account to another agency?

In addition, you can…

3. Take notes.

Whether it’s jotting down a few phrases on someone’s business card (“tall, wearing grey shirt, met at Levin Institute”) or writing down what was actually said, taking notes can also concentrate your mind and make it easier to listen.

To say nothing of reminding you, later on, what was said!

You Can Listen to Audiences, Too!

Stopping, looking, and listening before you speak can help you structure a conversation that’s a real exchange, and connects you to another person.

But for public speakers, it doesn’t end there. We also need to listen to our audiences — and in Public Speaking Tip 13, I’ll show you how!