Writing your presentation

Make public speaking success so much easier with this one gift

This is a guest post from Browyn Ritchie. Like ours, her blog discusses all aspects of public speaking, from nerves to storytelling. Today she tells us about her interesting approach to public speaking, which reminds me of the first rule of speaking: it’s about your audience, not you!

No matter how much we love or hate, endure or relish public speaking, we would all love it to be easier to plan and present successfully.

And it can be, if you just apply this one particular perspective to every presentation – the perspective of giving a gift.

My family is a small family, and we love giving gifts to celebrate special occasions like Christmas and birthdays.  We spend time trying to find a gift that will make the other person happy or be useful for them.  We try to find the best wrapping paper for that person and that gift.  Then, on the special occasion, we spend time giving and receiving.  If we are giving, we talk about why we bought this particular present, how we thought it would be most suitable.  If we are receiving, we examine the present and find its value and contribute to the process by discussing that value and how much we appreciate it.  There is a lot of humour and a lot of pleasure in this process, and it strengthens the bonds of our little family.

Imagine being able to bring that sort of pleasure and easy success to your public speaking.  With the gift-giving perspective it is possible.  Make every speech a gift-giving and you create for yourself that ease and a much less complicated path to success, as you plan and present.

Hands holding a gift box isolated on black backgroundIt provides you with a baseline from which to work.   It provides you with a framework for achieving your goals in your presentations, for creating clarity of thinking and for presenting with confidence.

Turn your speech into a gift-giving.  Present whatever it is that you are proposing, as a gift.   Whether it is a plan of action for your audience to follow, a system to implement, or a way of thinking to adopt, present it as a gift, something of value, something your audience will enjoy and/or find useful.

Here are 5 ways you can use this concept every time you plan and speak to make the whole process easier

1.        Overcome nerves.  Most of us who suffer from nerves do so for two main reasons.  We fear being judged and we fear mistakes.  Turn the focus away from yourself and your performance and towards the gift you’re giving, and you take away the fear.  Now the focus is on your generosity, your gift and how you can best package it for your audience.  There is no “fail” because the focus is on the gift and not on the “performance”
2.        Clarify your message.  If you have to articulate what your gift is, for yourself, and for your audience, you are forced to be very clear.  Your message needs to be, basically, “Here is my gift to you”.  Then all of the points that you make and all of the structure of your speech – everything – focuses on explaining its values and the joy of giving and receiving.  The whole presentation is focussed on the one message.  This will make it so much easier to tighten up your content and make sure you only use what is relevant to your message, and the outcome you want.
3.        Create engagement.    Gift giving is a recognised social behaviour.  As long as people can trust that you have no nasty strings attached to the gift, it is a social situation they are familiar with, a situation they can relax into and enjoy.  It is akin to storytelling in its ability to have an audience tune into your wavelength and drop their distrust of your message.
4. Encourage reflection.    Putting your message in gift-giving terms really allows you to encourage your audience to reflect on it.  If you can get them to see whatever it is you want them to do, think or believe acting in their lives it is far easier to get them to take ownership of it.

I’m sure my Dad was visualising himself using the notebook I gave him at Christmas-time when I was a child.  It fitted into his shirt pocket, it fitted the leather holder he always used and it had a space for his pencil, all of the things he needed to keep track of his purchases.

My husband, on the other hand, looked carefully at the jumper I knitted him one year, and noticed all too quickly that one arm was longer than the other. I had finished it the night before … and really haven’t done much knitting since! … which brings me to the next point.

5.        Focus on audience needs.  We choose our gifts carefully (usually) trying to find something that we can enjoy giving and that the recipient can enjoy and/or find useful … and that their friends and acquaintances will approve.  (And it is very difficult to enjoy, use or impress with a jumper with one arm longer than the other!)  So if you see your presentation as a gift-giving, you will choose to ensure you are meeting your audience’s needs and wants – as you do when you give a gift.  No longer will you be tempted to present just who you are, what you have done for them and what its features are, but rather what you are giving them and what its benefits are – for them, one of the basic steps to success.

So when you next present and give a speech, what is the gift you will give?  Start there and the rest of the process will fall into place.  Enjoy!

Bronwyn Ritchie is a public speaking coach. She helps people speak confidently and effectively.  You can start now and in just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, confident and successful, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com

Thanks Browyn – it’s a refreshing approach to speaking, and one I can imagine making many corporate presentations more successful!

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