So do all of your colleagues with average presentation skills.

Let’s see why this is so…

Cookies and the Cookie Police

Suppose you are baking cookies. After mixing up the dough, you scoop up a bit with your fingers, roll it into a ball, and plop it on the cookie sheet. Repeat this 50 times, and you’ve got an oven full of cookies. Repeat this 500 times, and you’ve got a freezer full of cookies — or, perhaps, enough for a bake sale.

Now, suppose that you were being investigated by the Homemade Cookie Police. After you plop each cookie onto the sheet, they carefully lift it up and weigh it. For all 500 cookies, they record the weight. When they finish, they prepare a chart (presumably for their PowerPoint presentation back at Headquarters).

If you are a normal human being, the chart would look something like this:

• Most of the cookies would have a weight very close to the average, give or take a few tenths of a gram.
• Small numbers of cookies would be either very small or very large.

The very small cookies might burn in the oven, and the very large cookies might be raw, but the vast majority of cookies would be delicious!

Humans and the Bell Curve

Why did the cookie weight/frequency chart turn out the way it did? Because you’re human!

You may have recognized the shape of the chart as the Bell Curve. (You might know it as a normal distribution, or some other name.)  It has many fascinating applications in mathematics and statistics, but perhaps the most fascinating is that if you consider any variable in a large population, the histogram (the chart of values versus the count) tends to follow the Bell Curve.

In the case of cookies, the weight is a variable because you aren’t a robot.

As another example, consider adult heights. The average height for North American men is about 69 ½ inches. (North American women are about 64 ½ inches.) Height is a variable, and the distribution of heights follows the Bell Curve.

• A large majority of male adults have heights around 69 ½ inches, perhaps a little above or a little below.
• There are, of course, some really tall people and some really short people. Relatively speaking, however, there are fewer of these people.

When it comes to height, being average is good. In fact, it’s preferred. Clothes, cars, and airplane seats are all designed for you. To be extremely short or extremely tall means a life of physical inconvenience.

As another example, consider a sport like golf and let’s look at how well people can hit the golf ball.

• Professional golfers can really smoke it, but there aren’t many professional golfers.
• Some people can barely hit it at all (perhaps they are too frail or maybe just too clumsy to swing a club). There are only a few of these people, too.
• The vast majority of us are in the middle. We’re just skilled enough to avoid injuring ourselves.

When it comes to golf, we’d like to be able to hit the ball at a professional level, but it’s okay to be average. Being average is mediocre, and that’s fine for golf. It’s understandable because most of us never received any golf lessons. Your golf skills are only used a few times per year (or in a lifetime), and your career success doesn’t depend much on your ability with a golf club.

Public Speaking and the Bell Curve

It’s a little more complex to quantify presentation skills, but suppose for a moment that you could. (Perhaps the number of minutes you can speak without anyone getting bored? Maybe the number of listeners who are motivated by your call-to-action?)

On the high end, you’ve got Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, and Steve Jobs.

On the low end, you’ve got hermits and people who cannot communicate at all.

In the middle, you have the majority of people with average presentation skills. Is this good? Or is this bad?

Here’s the key to this article: The line between being an effective communicator and an ineffective communicator is not down the middle of the chart. It’s over to the right. That’s where you want to be. That’s where you need to be.

Statistically speaking, you can suck and still be an average speaker. Most of your colleagues are. This is the Death by PowerPoint abyss. This is the 15 filler words per minute zone. This is the “What the heck is this speaker talking about?” zone.

• Presentation skills are not cookies.
  Chocolate chips won’t compensate for you being an average speaker. Your audience spends a lifetime in meetings listening to people who are average speakers and wishing they were somewhere else.
• Presentation skills are not like height.
  The world is not designed for average speakers to excel. People do not rally around you if you have an average ability to convey your ideas.
• Presentation skills are not like golf.
  It’s not okay to be a mediocre. Your communication skills matter!

To Be a Good Speaker, You Can’t Be Average

Why is the average speaker so bad? Like golf, most people in the world never receive any formal communications training, and they never pursue any informal training either. We all pay the price. Think of the last 50 presentations you have attended. How many kept you interested throughout? Ten? Five? Fewer than five?

The small fraction of the population who strive to improve their skills (that’s you if you are reading this article) has a huge advantage.  If your communication skills aren’t already above average, they will be. And above-average communication skills give you a huge advantage in life. Your ideas get communicated and noticed. You excel in interviews. You are seen as a leader.

The good news is that anyone can improve their skills with dedication, effort, and time. Read Six Minutes. Read other speaking blogs. Read communication books. Join a Toastmasters club. Volunteer to speak whenever you can. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Don’t be an average communicator. Be effective.

Similar Articles You May Like... Book Review: Confessions of a Public Speaker (Scott Berkun) Love the Process and Improve Your Speaking Skills 8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions and How to Fix Them How to Deliver Group Presentations: The Unified Team Approach How to Deliver the Talk of Your Life The 7 Deadly Sins of Public Speaking

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Your speaking ethos is critical to ensure that your audience is present, listening, and open to being persuaded by your ideas.

But, how do you maximize your ethos for a given speech and a given audience? Is ethos fixed before you open your mouth? Is there anything you can do during a speech that makes a difference?

This article shows you practical tactics you can employ to establish and increase your ethos.

Definition of Ethos

The previous article in the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos series defined ethos along four dimensions:

1. Trustworthiness
   Does your audience believes you are a good person who can be trusted to tell the truth?
2. Similarity
   Does your audience identify with you?
3. Authority
   Do you have formal or informal authority relative to your audience?
4. Reputation
   How much expertise does your audience think you have in this field?

We will refer to these four dimensions throughout this article as we link practical actions back to their roots. Look for them in parentheses, like this: (Similiarity). When a certain tactic applies to all four dimensions of ethos, we’ll denote it like this: (All)

Remember that these dimensions are not always independent; rather, they are often intertwined.

Caution: Ethos is not an exact measure

Consider the difference between your weight and your overall health.

• Weight is precise. Yesterday, you weighted 121 pounds. Today, you weigh 120.5 pounds. If you burn 3500 calories through exercise, you’ll drop one pound in weight. Last week, you weighed three pounds less than your sister.
• Health, on the other hand, is not precise. Your health cannot be described by a single number. Still, you can make some assertions. You can be pretty sure that one person is healthier than another. Further, you can be confident that certain actions will improve your health (e.g. exercising more; eating spinach) and other actions will damage your health (e.g. smoking;  eating cake).

Ethos is not like weight. You can’t say “Oh, my ethos score with this audience is 165 today. Yippee!” (Well, you can say it, but it would be meaningless.)

Instead, ethos is like your physical health. You probably have less ethos than Steve Jobs at a technology convention. Having come to this epiphany, you should also realize that there are certain actions which improve your ethos, and certain actions that damage your ethos. Examples of these actions will be the focus of the remainder of this article.

How to Improve Ethos – Long Before Your Speech

Ethos is about your audience’s perception of you, and this perception can be formed over many months or years, or perhaps over many past speeches. So, we’ll first examine things you can do in the long run to improve your ethos.

#1: Be a Good Person (Trustworthiness)

Let’s start with an easy one. Be a good person, do good things, and think good thoughts. There are far more important reasons to follow this mantra than to gain speaking ethos. Nonetheless, your ethos will grow. The positive effect you have on those around you will spread, and will become known to your audience.

Example: How much ethos does Tiger Woods have (in the wake of the fidelity scandal) in terms of trustworthiness?

#2: Develop Deep Expertise in Topics You Speak About (Reputation)

People are busy. (There’s a news flash!) There are many things competing for their attention, and there are often many other speakers competing for their attention. Why will they choose to listen to you speak? Your expertise will often differentiate you from competing speakers.

Example: Suppose an audience has two options for concurrent sessions at a conference:

1. Speaker A has very interesting ideas, but only 2 years of work in a related field.
2. Speaker B has written two best-selling books in the field, and is a sought after consultant with 15 years of experience.

Who is the audience going to choose?

There’s a corollary for this rule too. Stick to speaking about topics for which you have deep expertise.

#3: Market Yourself (Reputation)

Developing the expertise doesn’t earn you any ethos if you don’t market yourself and let the world know about it. You’ve got to take charge of your personal brand and make sure that it’s a brand that emphasizes the qualities you want to emphasize.

#4: Analyze Your Audience (Similarity)

Thorough audience analysis is critical for improving your ethos. (It’s critical for improving your pathos and logos too… but that’s a topic for another article. Stay tuned.)

Audience analysis will reveal valuable clues that you can use to adapt yourself to your audience. Seek to find common traits that you share and highlight them. For other traits, find ways to adapt your language, your mannerisms, your dress, your PowerPoint visuals, or your stories to match the audience.

Example: You’ve been invited to speak to a company that is new to you. You don’t know whether their corporate atmosphere is formal or relaxed. Through audience analysis, you discover that nobody in the company wears a suit to work. So, you choose a less formal outfit to adapt to your audience.

How to Improve Ethos — Before Your Speech

The day of your presentation is too late to develop deep expertise about your topic. However, there’s much you can do before you say your first words:

#5: Show up Early to Welcome the Audience (Trustworthiness)

Showing up with minutes to spare gives the impression that you almost had somewhere more important to be. Showing up early demonstrates your dedication to serve the audience. This, in turn, builds trust.

#6: Share Event Experience with Audience (Similarity)

If your presentation is part of a larger event, try to attend as much of it as you can. Every minute you spend with your audience as an audience member builds your level of affiliation with them. The event becomes a shared experience. The audience sees you as one of them.

#7: Highlight Ethos in Marketing Materials (All)

Depending on the event, you may have an opportunity to provide an author’s bio to complement your speech title. Seize this opportunity. Make it clear to your potential audience why they should spend their time (and their money) to listen to you. This is particularly critical if you are at an event with concurrent sessions. Don’t assume that people make their decisions on topic alone.

Example: Suppose you will be speaking at the Arizona Teachers Association Annual Conference. Positive testimonials from past presentations to teacher associations would be effective to establish your reputation.

#8: Highlight Ethos in Introduction (All)

Your introduction is probably the single best opportunity for you to establish your ethos with this audience on this day. For this reason, you should always write your own introduction. Don’t let an event organizer wing it. Highlight the essential facts that establish your trustworthiness, similarity, authority, and reputation. As in the example above, pick the material specific to this audience and topic.

Beware that you don’t overdo it. Long introductions are boring. Long introductions filled with every accomplishment you’ve had since age 21 are boring and pompous.

Example: Suppose you are delivering user training for employees to introduce the new corporate financial system. Key items to highlight in your brief introduction might be:

1. You were the project manager for implementing the new system (Reputation)
2. You have implemented similar systems twice before in your career (Reputation)

How to Improve Ethos — During Your Speech

If you’ve done well so far, your audience is listening from your first word. Don’t get complacent. Continue building your ethos through your presentation:

#9: Tell stories or anecdotes which show you are consistent with your message (Trustworthiness)

Don’t be a hypocrite. Nobody will act on your advice if you don’t.

Example: Suppose you are trying to persuade your audience to support Habitat for Humanity, an international organization that builds homes to eliminate poverty. You can raise your ethos by crafting stories or anecdotes which demonstrate that you are active in the local Habitat organization.

By demonstrating that you follow your own advice, your audience is more likely to believe you on other points which cannot be so easily verified (for example, statistics about Habitat for Humanity).

#10: Use language familiar to your audience (Similarity)

Using language familiar to your audience is good for two reasons:

1. It aids in their understanding (which, indirectly, makes you more persuasive).
2. It helps the audience identify with you which boosts your ethos.

By “familiar language”, I mean more than English versus Dutch. As well, I mean more than using words which are understood by the audience.

To really get your audience to identify with you, you must use the terms that they would use to describe the concepts.

Example: A few examples might make this clearer:

1. Many people would understand that property agent is the same thing as a real estate agent. However, depending where you speak, one of these terms will be more common. Use it!
2. Acronyms are dangerous if you are using ones that your audience doesn’t know. Conversely, if everyone in your audience uses the term P.M. on a daily basis, you should use that term rather than project manager.

#11: Use visuals/examples which resonate with your audience (Similarity)

For any given message, you have a multitude of options for stories, anecdotes, visuals, or other techniques to convey your speech. From this multitude, try selecting the ones which have the biggest impact with this audience. Not only will you get the big impact, but the audience will also start thinking that you are just like them. That’s good for you!

Example: Suppose you are speaking to company management on the topic of goal-setting. Through audience analysis, you discovered that the company sponsored employees to run the local marathon. Although there are many metaphors and visuals you could use to talk about goal-setting, you choose to draw parallels between corporate goal-setting and the goals one sets when tackling a challenging race. You feature several vivid photographs of marathon races to complement your arguments.

#12: Choose quotations and statistics from the right sources (All)

Quotations and statistics are common speech tools which, on the surface, may contribute more to your logos (logical argument) than ethos. Nonetheless, if you choose the right sources, you can boost your ethos too.

Example: When researching a speech about cancer research, you discover two statistics that will help you make your argument.

1. The source of the first statistic is some unknown author on Wikipedia.
2. The source of the second statistic is the Mayo Clinic.

Which statistic is your audience more likely to believe? If you guessed the Mayo Clinic, you’re right. When you reference a reputable source, you boost your ethos by association.

So, the general guideline is to use quotations and statistics from sources which have high ethos to your audience, whether by trustworthiness, similarity, authority, or reputation.

#13: Reference people in the audience, or events earlier in the day (Similarity)

Earlier, we mentioned that, if possible, you should try to share the event experience with your audience. When you do, you can increase your ethos by incorporating something from that shared experience (or someone in the audience) into your speech. Your audience sees you as “one of them”, and a silent bond forms.

Example: In the presentation preceding yours, the speaker repeated a memorable phrase “It’s never too late.” If you can do it in a meaningful way, try to weave this phrase into your material.

How to Improve Ethos — After Your Speech

Your talk is done, but your effectiveness as a speaker is not yet written in stone. Here’s a few things you can do to continue to build up your ethos with this audience, or with your next audience.

#14: Make yourself available to your audience (Similarity)

Whenever possible, stick around after your presentation is over. Mingle with the audience and continue to share in the event experience. Not only will you have the opportunity for productive follow-up conversations, but your audience will see you as accessible, and accessible is good.

In short, your ethos will rise.

#15: Follow through on promises made during your presentation (Trustworthiness)

One technique for managing a short Q&A session is to defer thorny or complex questions to a later time.

Example: If someone asks a question as part of a 10-minute Q&A session that would take you 20 minutes to answer, it’s okay to defer the question saying: “I’d like to give the complete answer, but we don’t have time today. I’ll send it out to the group on email.”

It’s okay to do that, but only if you do follow up! If you fail to do so, your audience will judge you as being untrustworthy. Even if your presentation was great, your influence on their future actions is diminished.

Ethos in the short term versus the long term

In the above examples, you may have noticed that trustworthiness and similarity were mentioned much more often than authority or reputation. This is not an accident.

• You can significantly influence your audience’s on-the-spot assessment of your trustworthiness and similarity by following the advice above. While your audience may have preconceptions about you in these dimensions, you may be able to change their mind.
• It is much harder to change your audience’s on-the-spot assessment of your authority and reputation. Your audience’s perception of you along these dimensions is mostly fixed before your speech starts. Either you are an expert in the field, or you are not. Either you have formal authority over your audience, or you don’t. Not much that you say in a one hour speech will change either of these.

Next in this Series…

In the next article of this series, we’ll switch our focus to examine pathos: your emotional connection with the audience.

Similar Articles You May Like... What is Ethos and Why is it Critical for Speakers? Ethos, Pathos, Logos: 3 Pillars of Public Speaking Should a Speaker Apologize to the Audience?

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Twice each month, Six Minutes weekend reviews bring you the best public speaking articles from throughout the public speaking blogosphere.

Please share them with anyone you feel would benefit from the tips and techniques.

This review features topics including:

• recently released public speaking books;
• storytelling and details;
• remedies for voice malfunctions;
• handling hecklers;
• thanking the audience;
• cartoons in presentations;
• rehearsal strategies;
• a speech critique of Sir Ken Robinson;
• and more!

From the Six Minutes Archives

One Year Ago from Six Minutes…

• Speech Analysis: Barack Obama’s Inaugural Speech
  5 Speechwriting Lessons from a speech with impossible expectations.

Two Years Ago from Six Minutes…

• Should a Speaker Apologize to the Audience
  Examines conventional speaking wisdom that one should never apologize.

Recently on Six Minutes…

• Ethos, Pathos, Logos: 3 Pillars of Public Speaking
  Introduction to the article series which examines these core concepts.
• What is Ethos and Why is it Critical for Speakers?
  Defines ethos along four characteristics: trustworthiness, similarity, authority, and reputation.
• Book Review: Confessions of  a Public Speaker
  An entertaining and insightful insider’s view of public speaking. This review was followed by a contest where Six Minutes readers submitted their confessions and insights.

Resources for Speakers – Public Speaking Books

Check out these recently released public speaking and communications books:

• Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change by Lawrence Polsky and Antoine Gerschel
• The Body Language Handbook: How to Read Everyone's Hidden Thoughts and Intentions by Gregory Hartley and Maryann Karinch
• Voice of Influence: How to Get People to Love to Listen to You by Judy Apps
• Making Learning Stick: 20 Proven Techniques That Produce Results by Barbara Carnes
• The Choreography of Presenting: The 7 Essential Abilities of Effective Presenters by Kendall Zoller

Speechwriting

• Denise Graveline urges you to add compelling details to stories.

Telling a story can be a powerful way to engage your audience, breathe life into a speech or presentation, get away from jargon to explain a complex point, or persuade your listeners.  But if you want the telling to be compelling, you need to sweat the details.

• Fred Miller emphasizes the importance of a strong speech closing.

This is why it is mandatory that you have a strong opening and a strong closing.  And of the two, more often than not, the closing will be recalled more than any other part of the presentation.

Memorize and practice, practice, practice your opening and closing!  Rehearse it so it becomes second nature to you.

Remember, though, it’s the first time this audience will hear it.  Don’t lose the enthusiasm and emotion you had when delivering the closing many audiences ago!

Delivery Techniques

• Kate Peters provides 3 remedies for common voice malfunctions.

1. If your voice croaks like a frog…
2. If your voice shakes…
3. If you get a tickle…

• Jim Anderson wonders how to handle hecklers.

When it comes to dealing with a heckler, a speaker’s options are somewhat limited. What is going on here is a power play – you own the stage, but the heckler is trying to take over your audience. The big unanswered question is which way will the audience go – will they side with the heckler or will they side with you, the speaker.

• Ellen Finkelstein shares a Toastmasters debate on whether to thank the audience or not.

I do like the idea of not making “thank you” your last words, though, and leaving the audience with a final, uplifting point. For example, I might say, “Thanks for your attention and remember that you CAN present complex data clearly!”

• Terry Gault questions responding in the Q&A with “That’s a good question.“

It’s a value judgment about the quality of the question.  If the questioner didn’t think it was a good question, they would not have asked it.

Visual Aids

• Troy Chollar demonstrates how to create an animated countdown timer in PowerPoint. [Ed. I'm going to try something like this to time out the breaks the next time I teach a course.]
• Philippa Leguen de Lacroix weighs the pros and cons of using cartoons in your presentation.

Cons:

1. The cartoon can be a distraction
2. The complexity or subtle humour of the cartoon may be lost on the audience
3. Your credibility may be undermined

Pros:

1. You can reinforce your point
2. The cartoon is a mind-break
3. Cartoons are entertaining!
4. Communication and learning works best using a combination of images and narrative

• Jan Schultink gives a step-by-step guide to effective slides with ample whitespace.

White space is a powerful element in slide design. An image with the subject in the center often does not leave enough space to let the slide breathe a bit. The following image sequence explain a work around. Basically, you stretch the background of the image without stretching and distorting the image subject itself.

Speaker Habits

• Bert Decker sums up one of my beliefs which led to founding Six Minutes: perpetual growth.

You’re either improving or decaying. [...] There is no in between. [...]

We’re all moving along the continuum of effective communicators. Even when you reach your goal as a communicator, the journey continues.

[...] Whatever you have achieved, there is always more work to be done. This is especially true when it comes to your image as a communicator.

• Stephanie Scotti suggests a strategy for rehearsal.

My rule of thumb is that a presentation that’s “well done” on paper is probably about 70% done in reality. On average, it takes three to five focused rehearsals for a speaker to really seal the deal — especially when it comes to critical or career-defining presentations.

• John Zimmer critiques Sir Ken Robinson’s TED speech.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• His talk seemed less a presentation to the audience and more a conversation with the audience.
• He did not need a single PowerPoint slide or other prop to support his talk.
• He involved the audience in many ways: his use of the word “we”; his asking several rhetorical questions; his reference to different things that the audience had experienced while at TED (e.g., his mentioning at 2:50, 13.30 and 17:55 other talks that the audience had heard); etc.
• He told stories! Great ones! Memorable ones! Stories that reinforced his main point.

Professional Speaking

• Cynthia Starks reports on a United States Supreme Court decision that may have consequences for corporate communicators.

“Thursday morning the Supreme Court, by an ideologically predictable 5-to-4 margin, overturned as unconstitutional laws that ban corporations from running TV ads explicitly backing or opposing candidates during election campaigns.”

Startling as the decision is, it’s also an opportunity for communications professionals to craft messages executives should be giving to their stakeholders in the coming weeks and months.

Similar Articles You May Like... Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2010-01-02] Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2009-12-05] Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2009-11-07] Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2009-10-10] Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2009-09-05] Best Public Speaking Tips and Techniques: Weekend Review [2009-07-11]

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Have you ever fainted in mid-sentence?

Have you ever shown up for a 1-hour seminar only to be told you had to give it eight times in a row?

Have you ever had your blouse pop open while speaking?

These were just a few of the confessions shared by Six Minutes readers in our contest to win a copy of Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun.

Thank you to everyone who participated. The responses are collectively funny, surprising, and educational. A few of the most shocking confessions and the most valuable insights are featured below. Click here to read all of them back at the original contest article.

Underwear, Clown Noses, and Hello Kitty Toys

Jeff Fisher:

Attracting, and keeping, the attention of an audience can be difficult when you are speaking in the last time slot of a long conference day. I’ve managed to keep audiences awake in the past by doing my presentation in my underwear, wearing a clown nose, giving out door prizes such as “Hello Kitty” toys, and more. Be unique, be daring, be humorous – and be sure to somehow tie the unusual action into the topic on which you are speaking.

Remuneration or Renumeration?

A.J. Kandy:

Our high school debating club participated in a province-wide debating tournament. Our president had typed up copies of the main debate topic for us, which was “Be it resolved that the renumeration of Members of Parliament must be modified.” We scratched our heads and prepared as best as we could, coming up with elaborate talking points about redistricting of electoral ridings. When we entered the first debate, we were shocked to find out that the topic was actually “…the _remuneration_ of Members of Parliament.” Our club president had to face some pretty tough questions the next day… Lesson learned? Preparation counts, but so does the ability to throw away the script and improvise judiciously.

Could you give that presentation 7 more times?

Lon:

I was speaking for a sales force training day at IBM, [and] was told they needed an hour long session and to be there by 8:30. What I didn’t know was that I was the only presenter of the day, and they wanted me to give the same presentation 8 times that day!

Choosing the Wrong Person for Eye Contact

Bernadette:

A friend was giving a presentation about making a website more accessible for disabled users (i.e., ADA-compliant) at a day-long conference on Diversity. To calm her nerves, she relied on the well-known tip of choosing and presenting to one person in the audience as if you’re having a simple conversation. However, the gentleman she selected in the front row gave her absolutely no encouragement in return. She grew more and more disheartened as the man didn’t even acknowledge her beyond a looking in her direction.

She realized the flaw in her plan when, after she concluded, the man pulled out his folding white cane and left. She had been trying to made eye contact with someone who is blind – a likely encounter anywhere, but especially at a conference themed for universal accessibility.

Yet again, know your audience!

Out Cold at the Podium

Dan Chihos:

I was in my last year of AFROTC at NDSU; one assignment was to prepare and give a speech to the Commander and his staff. I was so nervous that and unprepared that shortly after standing up to give my speech, I was out cold at the podium, I had fainted and was unable to complete the assignment. Somehow I was able to pass the class and earn my commission. I am now an active member of a local Toastmasters group.

The Curse of Knowledge

Barbara Brown:

My worst fault, to me, is that I tend to give analogies that are completely lost on my audience. I see a clear connection, but they don’t.
Then, I make it worse by over-explaining.

The Three-Word Speech

Peggy Bassett:

My most embarrassing moment occurred when I attempted to give a speech without my notes. I’d rehearsed and was please with my practice. But, when I gave the speech, I went totally blank. I couldn’t even remember the topic! After standing there a few moments, I said, “To be continued!” and left the podium. The lesson I learned: No matter how rehearsed you are, always, always carry a copy of your speech with a brief outline to jog your memory in case of an emergency!

Speaking Without Conviction

Sandrina:

On my business college course, we all had assignments to make presentations about a certain company and present their product in best possible way like we are selling it. I chose a tobacco company where my mother works because I knew all about it. Therefore I would not need to invest a lot of time preparing the presentation. It took me just couple of hours to prepare everything. Presentation looked great, there was lot of information and it was very well presented, but when the questions from audience started it turned into a disaster. Why? Because I am a non-smoker and I actually hate that company.

You have to believe what are you talking about.

Really Connecting with 2nd Graders

Jonna E Ritchie:

My public speaking confession: I often look at a general table area common to all the people at the table when I speak. It gives them the impression that I’m making individual eye contact, when I’m not. Most embarrassing experience: I gave a talk to a group of 2nd graders and they seemed to be really getting the topic and appeared very focused, laughed in all the ‘right’ spots, etc. When I asked for questions at the end one of them asked what I had stuck to my front tooth. It was spinach from a salad. They weren’t laughing at WHAT I was saying, but instead AT me. I didn’t interpret their enthusiasm correctly. Embarrassing!

Speech Enemy #1: Almonds

Kevin Wortman:

I was scheduled to speak before a senior leadership team one afternoon and decided to quiet a hungry stomach with a handful of almonds just prior to the talk. Little did I know that in an attempt to quiet my stomach, I sacrificed my voice. After my introduction, an almond skin tickled my throat and I went into a hacking fit. It’s difficult to convey a message when you are turning your esophagus inside out. Needless to say, I’ve learned that a simple drink of water works best before a speech and have practiced that approach ever since.

Value for the Audience & A Popping Blouse Button

Beth Bridges:

Lesson Learned:
As Chief Networking Officer of the Clovis Chamber, I am frequently invited to speak on networking. I was invited to one of the area’s larger, more established Rotary Clubs. As I was looking out over the audience, a wave of panic overcame me. “What could I possibly have to say to this group of experienced business people?!”
I plowed through, sweating it out, but the intimidation factor didn’t make it one of my better presentations. I felt like it was a complete waste of time.
But that afternoon, I got a call from one of the audience members. “I really appreciated the information, I didn’t know a lot of what you presented, and I’d like for you to come speak to my employees and my business neighbors.” That presentation turned into another speech and is still having further effects.
Lesson? Even if just ONE person takes something away, you should never feel like you have nothing to offer.

Now for the embarrassing story:
I was presenting to a small group of about 20 people in a classroom setting when a button located in a strategic place on my blouse, popped off and audibly hit the desk in front of me. Fortunately I was wearing a jacket. I turned around, buttoned up, and no one ever said a thing. But I think my face was as red as the blouse!

More Speaking Confessions and Insights

This was just a sample of entries received. Click here to read all of them.

And the Winners Are…

Three readers who submitted confessions were drawn randomly to receive a copy of Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun.

Congratulations to:

• Colleen Cole
• Jeff Fisher
• Beth Bridges

Winners have been notified by email.

Similar Articles You May Like... Win a Book! Share Your Public Speaking Confessions Contest: Win a Book by Recommending a Book World’s Best Presentation Contest

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Is your audience listening even before you speak your first words?

Do they have high expectations?

Are they prepared to be convinced by what you have to say?

If not, you are suffering from poor ethos.

The first article in the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos series introduced these core concepts for speakers.

In this article, we define ethos, we look at ways that an audience measures your ethos, and we examine why it is so critical for a successful speech.

What is Ethos?

Ethos was originally defined by Aristotle in On Rhetoric as being trustworthy. He stated that we are more likely to believe people who have good character.

Aristotle later broadened this definition of ethos to add that we are more likely to be persuaded by someone who is similar to us, whether by their intrinsic characteristics (e.g. physical age) or the qualities they adapt (e.g. youthful language).

Aristotle does not include the concept of either a speaker’s authority (e.g. a government leader) or reputation (e.g. an industry expert) in his definition of ethos, but this reflects the rather narrow role for public speaking in his world. In our world, where speaking takes so many forms and where we often know a great deal about the speaker, we will include both of these elements in our definition of ethos.

So, then, we will measure the ethos of a speaker by four related characteristics:

1. Trustworthiness (as perceived by the audience)
2. Similarity (to the audience)
3. Authority (relative to the audience)
4. Reputation or Expertise (relative to the topic)

We will explore each of these characteristics below. In a later article, we look at specific things you can do to improve your ethos as defined by these root characteristics.

1. Ethos = Trustworthiness

An audience is more likely to be persuaded by someone who they trust, and this is largely independent of the topic being presented. If the audience trusts you, then they expect that what you are telling them is true.

Your trustworthiness is enhanced if the audience believes you have a strong moral character, as measured by concepts like:

• Honest,
• Ethical or moral,
• Generous, or
• Benevolent

Additionally, your audience tends to trust you if you are a member of a group with which these qualities are often associated (e.g. a pastor; a firefighter).

2. Ethos = Similarity to the Audience

Your audience is more receptive to being persuaded by someone with whom they can identify. Like trustworthiness, this aspect of ethos is largely independent of the topic.

If you share characteristics with your audience, great!

If you don’t, you can adapt your language, your mannerisms, your dress, your visuals, and your overall style to match your audience. Consider this the chameleon effect. Keep in mind that there are limitations to how much you can adapt your speech and delivery. Beyond this limit, your audience will see you as lacking authenticity and that’s bad.

There are many characteristics which you might share with your audience:

• Age, Gender, Race, Culture
  Example: A youthful audience identifies with a youthful speaker, just as a mature audience will identify more with a mature speaker.
• Socio-economic status
  Rich? Poor? Educated? Middle-class? Urban? Rural?
• Citizenship
  Where you are from, whether in a global sense (what country are you from?), or in a local sense (are you urban, or rural?)
• Career or Affiliation
  Do you share a profession with your audience?
  Are you a member of the same organization as your audience?
• Personality
  Analytical? Emotional? Reserved? Outgoing?

If you are similar to your audience, then your audience will be more receptive to your ideas in the same way that you are more likely to open a door at night if you recognize the voice of the person on the other side.

3. Ethos = Authority

The greater a person’s authority, whether formal (e.g. an elected official) or moral (e.g. the Dalai Lama), the more likely an audience is inclined to listen and be persuaded.

Authority comes from the relationship between the speaker and the audience and is, in most cases, fairly easy to recognize. Several types of authority include:

• Organizational authority
  e.g. CEO, manager, supervisor
• Political authority
  e.g. president, political leader
• Religious authority
  e.g. priest, pastor, nun
• Educational authority
  e.g. principal, teacher, professor
• Elder authority
  e.g. anyone who is older than us

In addition to these, every speaker has authority just from being the speaker. When you speak, you are the one at the front of the room, often on an elevated platform, sometimes with a microphone or spotlight. You control the moment and thus, have temporary authority.

4. Ethos = Reputation (or Expertise)

Expertise is what you know about your topic.

Reputation is what your audience knows about what you know about your topic.

Your ethos is influenced by your reputation. Of the four characteristics of ethos, reputation is the one most connected to the topic of your presentation.

Your reputation is determined by several related factors:

• Your experience in the field
  How many years have you worked with or studied this topic?
• Your proximity to the topic or concept
  Are you the one who invented the concept? Were you involved at all? Or are you more of a third-party?
• Your production in the field
  Books or academic papers written. Blogs authored. Commercial products developed.
• Your demonstrated skill
  If you are talking about money management, are you a successful money manager?
• Your achievements, or recognition from others in the field
  Awards won. Testimonials earned. Records achieved. Milestones reached.

How do these characteristics combine?

Ethos cannot be assessed it with a checkbox (“yes, you have ethos” or “no, you don’t.”) like you can with, say, pregnancy. It’s more like beauty in the sense that there’s a whole range of beauty and many ways to obtain it. (And, it’s in the eye of the beholder… your audience!)

This is easy to see if you examine how the four characteristics of ethos combine in various ways. Consider the following examples:

• A CEO speaking to her employees
  As the CEO, she has organizational authority, and this is usually accompanied by a reputation built on years of success within the company. However, she may not be very similar to most of the employees (older than most; richer than most; perhaps more reserved and analytical). Nonetheless, her trustworthiness is solid based on past history of honest communication with employees.
• The U.S. President giving the State of the Union address
  The President has more authority than most people on the planet based on his job title.  His reputation and trustworthiness probably depend a fair bit on your political beliefs. As for similarity to his audience, it’s a mixed bag — He’s American, and he’s not too old nor too young. But, he’s a politician and in a socio-economic class which puts him apart from most citizens.
• A Teacher speaking to his students
  He probably has a record of trustworthiness, as long as he truthfully announces when assignments are due and exams are scheduled.  He has authority over the 16-year-olds, both by way of position and by age. He has taught in the school for 10 years (expertise), including many of his students’ older siblings (reputation). Unfortunately, he’s not really similar to his students in terms of age, wealth, career, or choice of music.

All of them have significant ethos as they score high on several measures. In particular, authority and reputation often are closely related. (The things you did to earn the reputation often earn authority as well.)

On the other hand, none have perfect ethos. Indeed, this is very hard to obtain as some measures conflict. For example, your authority relative to your audience often weakens your similarity with them.

Why is Ethos Critical for Speakers?

If you have high ethos, your audience is listening and attentive from your first word. They expect that you have something valuable to say, and they are eager to hear it. They are likely to be persuaded by you, provided that your speech is compelling. A bad speech will still sink you, but you’ll have more leeway.

If you have low ethos, your audience may not be listening or paying attention. (In fact, they may not even show up! Poor ethos doesn’t attract a crowd.) Expectations are low, and a poor opening will kill you. Your audience can be persuaded, but your speech needs to be much better to do it.

How do you Establish Ethos?

Unlike pathos and logos (about which we will learn in future articles), your ethos as a speaker is primarily established before you speak your first words. For example, either you have expertise about your topic, or you don’t. Either you are the CEO of the company, or you aren’t.

Having said that, there are many ways to establish ethos and to boost your ethos throughout your speech. We examine this in the next article of the series: 15 Tactics to Establish Ethos: Examples for Persuasive Speaking.

Similar Articles You May Like... 15 Tactics to Establish Ethos: Examples for Persuasive Speaking Ethos, Pathos, Logos: 3 Pillars of Public Speaking Should a Speaker Apologize to the Audience?

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Last week, we reviewed Scott Berkun’s latest book, Confessions of a Public Speaker.

I asked Sara Peyton over at O’Reilly (the book publisher) for a few copies for Six Minutes readers, and she kindly agreed.

Now, you can win one of three copies by sharing your own public speaking confessions!

• What speaking lesson did you learn the hard way?
• What was your most embarrassing speaking experience?
• What secret speaking techniques do you use?

[Another reason to celebrate? This marks the 200th article at Six Minutes. Yippee!]

How Can You Win?

Just submit a comment on this article (click here to do so) with:

1. Your public speaking confession. It can be any speaking experience where you learned a valuable lesson.
2. Your name
3. Your email address (so we can contact you if you win)

That’s it!

To be eligible to win, your comment must be received before 11:59 pm EST on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010.

Update: This contest is now closed.

We’ll randomly select three winners from all entries received. Winners will be announced next week and we’ll feature some of the best confessions. Winners will receive a copy of Confessions of a Public Speaker straight from the publisher.

Submit your entry now!

Similar Articles You May Like... Contest: Win a Book by Recommending a Book Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2010-02-06] Psst! Readers’ Speaking Confessions and Lessons Book Review: Confessions of a Public Speaker (Scott Berkun) Book Review: Universal Principles of Design Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2010-01-02]

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

2300 years ago, Aristotle wrote down the secret to being a persuasive speaker, the secret which forms the basis for nearly every public speaking book written since then.

Do you know the secret?

If you don’t, you might be wondering what a 2300-year-old theory has to do with public speaking in the year 2010.

In a word — everything!

In this article, you’ll learn what ethos, pathos, and logos are (the secret!), and what every speaker needs to understand about these three pillars of public speaking.

What are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos?

So, what are ethos, pathos, and logos?

In simplest terms, they correspond to:

• Ethos: credibility (or character) of the speaker
• Pathos: emotional connection to the audience
• Logos: logical argument

Together, they are the three persuasive appeals. In other words, these are the three essential qualities that your speech or presentation must have before your audience will accept your message.

Origins of Ethos, Pathos, Logos — On Rhetoric by Aristotle

Written in the 4th century B.C.E., the Greek philosopher Aristotle compiled his thoughts on the art of rhetoric into On Rhetoric, including his theory on the three persuasive appeals.

Many teachers of communication, speech, and rhetoric consider Aristotle’s On Rhetoric to be a seminal work in the field. Indeed, the editors of The Rhetoric of Western Thought: From the Mediterranean World to the Global Setting call it “the most important single work on persuasion ever written.” It is hard to argue this claim; most advice from modern books can be traced back to Aristotle’s foundations.

In The Classic Review, Sally van Noorden points to George Kennedy’s modern translation as the standard reference text for studying On Rhetoric. Kennedy’s translation is the source that I use. (At the time of this writing, it is available from amazon.com for $24.56, 18% off the list price.)

Ethos

Before you can convince an audience to accept anything you say, they have to accept you as credible.

There are many aspects to building your credibility:

• Does the audience respect you?
• Does the audience believe you are of good character?
• Does the audience believe you are generally trustworthy?
• Does the audience believe you are an authority on this speech topic?

Keep in mind that it isn’t enough for you to know that you are a credible source. (This isn’t about your confidence, experience, or expertise.) Your audience must know this. Ethos is your level of credibility as perceived by your audience.

We will define ethos in greater detail, and we will study examples of how to establish and build ethos.

Pathos

Pathos is the quality of a persuasive presentation which appeals to the emotions of the audience.

• Do your words evoke feelings of … love? … sympathy? … fear?
• Do your visuals evoke feelings of compassion? … envy?
• Does your characterization of the competition evoke feelings of hate? contempt?

Emotional connection can be created in many ways by a speaker, perhaps most notably by stories. The goal of a story, anecdote, analogy, simile, and metaphor is often to link an aspect of our primary message with a triggered emotional response from the audience.

In a future article, we will study pathos in greater detail, and look at how to build pathos by tapping into different audience emotions.

Logos

Logos is synonymous with a logical argument.

• Does your message make sense?
• Is your message based on facts, statistics, and evidence?
• Will your call-to-action lead to the desired outcome that you promise?

In a future article, we will examine how to construct a logical, reasoned argument.

Which is most important? Ethos? Pathos? or Logos?

Suppose two speakers give speeches about a new corporate restructuring strategy.

• The first speaker — a grade nine student — gives a flawless speech pitching strategy A which is both logically sound and stirs emotions.
• The second speaker — a Fortune 500 CEO — gives a boring speech pitching strategy B.

Which speech is more persuasive? Is the CEO’s speech more persuasive, simply because she has much more credibility (ethos)?

Some suggest that pathos is the most critical of the three. In You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard, Bert Decker says that people buy on emotion (pathos) and justify with fact (logos). True? You decide.

Aristotle believed that logos should be the most important of the three persuasive appeals. As a philosopher and a master of logical reasoning, he believed that logos should be the only required persuasive appeal. That is, if you demonstrated logos, you should not need either ethos or pathos.

However, Aristotle stated that logos alone is not sufficient. Not only is it not sufficient on its own, but it is no more important than either of the two other pillars. He argued that all three persuasive appeals are necessary.

Is he right? What do you think?

Next in this Series…

In the next article of this series, we examine ethos in greater detail.

Similar Articles You May Like... 15 Tactics to Establish Ethos: Examples for Persuasive Speaking What is Ethos and Why is it Critical for Speakers? How to Connect With Your Audience by Moving Closer Connect With Your Audience: Don’t Hide Your Emotions When Speaking Should a Speaker Apologize to the Audience? Book Review: Confessions of a Public Speaker (Scott Berkun)

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

This article is the latest of a series of public speaking book reviews here on Six Minutes.

• What’s Inside?
• The Price
• What I Loved
• How could it be better?
• What Others Think
• Verdict

What’s Inside?

Based on the provocative title, you might think this book is heavy on memoirs and light on educational content. You would only be half right.

Confessions of a Public Speaker is packed with personal stories from the author and also packed with tips and advice for speakers from all backgrounds. A more appropriate title would probably have been “Insights of a Public Speaker” or “Lessons Learned by a Public Speaker”; of course, neither of those titles would like sell as many copies as this best-selling book is.

The video below shows the author talking about what the book is about…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Price

At the time of writing this review, you can get this hardcover book for only $16.49 from amazon.com. This is 34% off the list price.

At this price, it isn’t surprising that this book is the 7th most popular public speaking book on amazon.com since being released last November. Readers love it — everyone’s giving it 5 stars.

3 Things I Love about Confessions of a Public Speaker

The three things I liked most about Confessions of a Public Speaker are:

1. Packed with Great Insights

Confessions of a Public Speaker touches on a broad set of issues — fear of speaking, preparation, organization of ideas, delivery techniques, teaching approach, dealing with a difficult crowd, preventing mishaps, speaking technology, and many others. Every speaker will find new advice and insights here.

As just one example, the second chapter (just 11 pages) is perhaps the most concise, sensible advice on public speaking fear I’ve read.

2. Wonderfully written!

Most public speaking books are written by speaking experts who, if I were to guess, are not authors by nature.

Confessions of a Public Speaker is different.  Scott Berkun is a best-selling author (see: Making Things Happen and The Myths of Innovation) and refers to himself as a writer first, and a speaker second. His humorous, witty, and sharp prose make this a thoroughly enjoyable read.

3. Honest to a Fault

Confessions begins with an odd disclaimer:

This book is highly opinionated, personal, and full of behind-the-scenes stories. You may not like this. Some people like seeing how sausage is made, but many do not.

Although everything in this book is true and written to be useful, if you don’t always want to hear the truth, this book might not be for you.

It’s true. The honesty in this book may shock some, like this passage:

No amount of training will make a man with two brain cells seem anything but dumb, as the problem is not his ability to speak, it’s his inability to think. It’s rarely said, but some people will never be good public speakers. Unless they find someone to do their thinking for them, they only have, at best, half the tools they need.

[...] The problem with most bad presentations I see is not the speaking, the slides, the visuals, or any of the things people obsess about. Instead, it’s the lack of thinking.

Personally, I appreciate this fresh approach.

How could it be better?

1. More Cohesion from Chapter to Chapter

Each individual chapter is well-written and feels “just right” as far as depth. However, I didn’t notice much continuity from one chapter to the next, and there’s no obvious rationale for the ordering of material.

Maybe this isn’t a bad thing. Each chapter stands on its own. It’s easy to read the book in short bursts — like I did, one chapter each night.

2. Better Photos

There are photos distributed throughout the book (and even one short chapter with a whole series of them), many taken by the author at speaking venues. The photos are referenced in the text, and they help to tell the story.

Unfortunately, the photos are not in color, and the contrast levels are too low, so many of them hard to view. A few are completely washed out in my copy.

Maybe this was a tradeoff that keeps the price of the book low? Maybe it was only my copy? Maybe the photos could be shared on the author’s website for keeners like me who want to squeeze every drop of meaning?

Update: Apparently, it wasn’t just my copy. On Scott’s blog, he reports that the low-contrast photos were a mistake in the first print run, and says the 2nd and 3rd run fixes this problem. If you get a copy now, you should get the good photos.

What Others Think

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker:

If public speaking is a part of your job–and it is, in some capacity, whether or not you’re Barack Obama–this book is a worthy read. It’s converted at least one person who has turned down speaking engagements because the idea was too scary to someone excited about getting better at a special and important skill.

Ben Rothke, Slashdot:

[...] Confessions of a Public Speaker is unique in that it takes a holistic approach to the art and science of public speaking. The book doesn’t just provide helpful hints, it attempts to make the speaker, and his associated presentation, compelling and necessary.

Jeff Bailey, Wired Presentations:

If you are new to presentations this should be the first book that you read on the topic. It gives a lot of great advice that many people take for granted.

Rhett Laubach, Authenticity Rules:

I have given at least 100 public speeches each year for the past 18 years and I have found a ton of value in it.

Ian Griffin, Speechwriter:

Confessions of a Public Speaker offers presenters—and those of us who support executives who give presentations—a great source of ideas to improve both the content and delivery of future talks.

Verdict

Here’s my confession… I didn’t want to put this book down.

Confessions of a Public Speaker provides sound advice that can help anyone improve their speaking skills. Highly recommended.

Similar Articles You May Like... What Does Your Personal Brand Say About You as a Speaker? 8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions and How to Fix Them Book Review: The Wealthy Speaker by Jane Atkinson 12 Days of Public Speaking Christmas Average Speakers Suck. Don’t be Average. Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2010-02-06]

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Six Minutes weekend reviews are back for a third year of bringing you the best public speaking articles from throughout the public speaking blogosphere.

This review features topics including:

• speechwriting lessons from Martin Luther King Jr.;
• structuring your presentation logically;
• becoming aware of your voice;
• benefits of a flip chart;
• mistakes with visuals;
• speaker habits;
• stages in a professional speaking career;
• and more!

From the Six Minutes Archives

One Year Ago from Six Minutes…

• Speech Analysis: I Have a Dream – Martin Luther King Jr.
  Five speechwriting lessons from one of the most famous speeches of all time

Two Years Ago from Six Minutes…

• Six Simple Techniques for Presenting Data: Hans Rosling (TED, 2006)
  A must-see presentation that makes a huge impact with visual aids.

Recently on Six Minutes…

• Love the Process and Improve Your Speaking Skills
  Five speaking lessons about the improvement process drawn from a must-see video.
• Reader Survey Results – January 2010
  An informative snapshot of Six Minutes readers. Do your answers agree?
• Book Review: Universal Principles of Design
  A review of the best book I read in 2009.
• Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety
  A plethora of practical tips for improving your vocal variety by becoming more aware of your breathing, from guest author Kate Peters.
• What Does Your Personal Brand Say About You as a Speaker?
  Advice to help you define yourself as a speaker, from guest author Chaunce Stanton.

Speechwriting

• Scott Schwertly logically presents how to structure your presentation logically.

Structuring your presentation logically makes it easy for your audience to follow along and understand how you came to your conclusions.  Think about your presentation’s structure as a road map that guides your audience from point A to point B.  Just as you wouldn’t give driving directions by throwing a bunch of street names out to your friends and hoping that they order them correctly and then turn the right way on each, you shouldn’t present your topics haphazardly.

Delivery Techniques

• Kate Peters lists 10 ways to become more aware of your voice.

Just as your physical appearance, your voice can represent you either effectively or ineffectively. The question is, how do you make the switch from creating your voice through reaction and imitation to creating your voice through thoughtful application of knowledge? The answer is: you start by listening objectively.

Visual Aids

• Tom Ferguson lists several benefits of using a flip chart. (Thanks, Chris Witt for the link.)

It doesn’t need to be plugged in, rebooted, the lamp won’t blow and it doesn’t care about my laptop or its screen resolution. It can be used everywhere and anywhere and it can even be put on the table in the middle of all those brainstormers! Best of all, this no-nonsense low tech tool doesn’t require any special training or skills and can be used by anyone who can write and that usually includes just about everybody on the project team!

• Dave Paradi reports on a call to be judicious with PowerPoint in the US military.

“The format of intelligence products matters. Commanders who think PowerPoint storyboards and color-coded spreadsheets are adequate for describing the Afghan conflict and its complexities have some soul searching to do. Sufficient knowledge will not come from slides with little more text than a comic strip. Commanders must demand substantive written narratives and analyses from their intel shops and make the time to read them. There are no shortcuts. Microsoft Word, rather than PowerPoint, should be the tool of choice for intelligence professionals in a counterinsurgency.”

• Jon Thomas lists six mistakes with visuals which destroy your credibility.

I feel that there are some errors and omissions that are simply inexcusable and when they show up in a presentation, the audience should rightfully feel insulted.  If nothing else, give your presentation a quick run-through to ensure none of these have reared their ugly heads.

• Vivek Singh reminds you not to put important text or images on the edge of your slides.

One possible problem which I have seen quite often is that the edges of the slides get cut due to adjustment problems. The projection does not fall in sync with the screen on the wall.

• Jan Schultink suggests Google Street View as a source for presentation images.

Ultra-local: if your presentation somehow is set in a certain location, go there!

If your presentation is in the area of retail, urban planning, Street View is a great way to give examples of let’s say Starbucks stores in a few different cities, in a few different formats

• Nancy Duarte gives 5 rules for “creating world-changing presentations.” Watch the video below, or check out Nancy talking about it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Speaker Habits

• Kelly Decker critiques a Google product launch presentation.

My guess is that the amount/time of preparation wasn’t the problem…it was HOW he prepared! (Which, unfortunately, is WAY too common.)

Likely spent all his time studying the market opportunity, adoption rates, features/benefits, competitive landscape, and perfecting the business abstractions.

• Andy Budd shares 7 lessons for public speaking.

[G]ood speakers aren’t just orators. They’re people can who see the stories hidden inside complex sets of data and are able to expose these relationships in a logical and structured manner. Good speakers are storytellers, plain and simple.

Professional Speaking

• Ian Griffin examines five stages in a typical speaking career.

The dream is born.

The journey begins.

A business materializes.

The work expands.

Reflection is inevitable.

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

A dream? Not if you understand how to brand yourself as an expert, one of the steps to becoming a speaker in demand.

In this article, we tap into the wisdom of five experts from the fields of branding and public speaking. They discuss the importance of personal branding, and they offer advice about specific tools you can use to shape your personal brand.

Be the Expert

As a public speaker, you will have plenty of opportunities to speak, but your potential audiences also have plenty of other speaker options. Beyond simply having a skilled delivery, go-to speakers have developed a specific area of expertise. That expertise keeps their audiences coming back for more.

Jane Atkinson stated that the trick is to have your name become synonymous with your expertise. If people aren’t taking you by the sleeve, offering to buy you lunch just so they can pick your brain about your area of expertise, they should be.

Jane Atkinson:

In the speaking industry, it’s all about focus. You can’t be all things to all people. The best way to start building your brand is to declare your area of expertise. People need to know what they are getting from you. As people recognized my expertise, they kept asking me for my professional advice, and I thought, “Some day I’m going to charge for this advice.” I was developing my personal brand.

For Jane, especially in the speaking industry, more is not always better. Likewise, according to Nick Morgan, saying ‘yes’ to every opportunity may seem like a great way to establish more business, but it can exhaust you and dilute the potency of your personal brand.

Nick Morgan:

It wasn’t until I had the courage to say ‘no’ to some people that my brand began to take on some clarity.

The clarity Nick refers to comes from defining an overall vision and shaping our personal brands to help others see that vision the same way we do. But the vision must have a sharp focus. As an example, Aymee Buckhannon related how she found her own focus by helping others develop their personal brands.

Aymee Buckhannon:

I built a website for a life coach as a favor. Then another person saw it, then another person saw it, and the rest is history. Now I define myself confidently as a “branding strategist” and focus mainly on network marketing professionals.

Developing expertise in an area of interest to others may take years. By then, hopefully your area of expertise is something you still are passionate about. When you can align your expertise with your passion, you are well on your way to being the speaker audiences crave.

Manage Your Personal Brand

Even when you’re not behind the podium, you convey a presence to the world, be it in your one-to-one relationships or via the Internet. So, how do you make sure that the image you convey helps your speaking career instead of damaging it?

Joe Calloway wrote, “Your brand resides in the minds of your customers [...] Your brand is whoever customers think you are, whatever they think is your promise to them, and whether or not they believe that you keep that promise.”

It’s not too difficult for a presenter to replace the word “customers” in Calloway’s example with “audience” – or even “potential audiences”. Expanding your speaking opportunities means shaping your brand as a presenter, because your brand affects:

• Your ability to be hired to present.
• The types of speaking engagements you are offered.
• Your audience’s expectations.

Our experts agree that a speaker’s personal brand is as important as how well a speaker delivers a presentation. According to Joe Calloway, the two key questions are whether your brand is what you want it to be and whether you have created it by design.

Joe Calloway:

If I were to ask your clients or professional colleagues what it’s like to do business with you, whatever they say next is your brand. For me, one of the key elements of my personal brand is that Joe Calloway is “easy to do business with.” It’s very much by design and has become a key “tiebreaker” that has gotten me a ton of business over the years.

Cynthia Starks said that, for her, a personal brand is more than a choice of colors for a website or business cards. She takes a “big picture” approach to personal branding, remaining aware of how she comes across to other people in both personal interactions and in her dealings with others on the Internet.

Cynthia Starks:

I think personal branding is who you are – and that “who” comes across most fully in your personal interactions – on the ‘Net and in real life.

Are you kind? Are you willing to hear different opinions? Willing to be a resource to others? Are your online comments encouraging and supportive instead of sarcastic or cynical? These sets of behaviors are truly your “personal brand.”

Jane Atkinson echoed Cynthia’s observations about a more inclusive definition of personal branding. She cautions against losing track of your brand as a speaker.

Jane Atkinson:

People are building their personal brands, whether they’re aware of it or not, and sometimes they may unintentionally be creating a negative brand for themselves. It takes intention and focus to build an effective personal brand.

Jane suggested taking an active role in creating the brand that you want as a speaker, a sentiment shared by Aymee Buckhannon, who pointed out that when people see that you deliver what you promise through your personal brand, you increase your opportunities as a speaker and in other channels, too.

Aymee Buckhannon:

If people like to work with me for what I offer as a leader, or a branding strategist, then it won’t matter which product I carry. Meaning, if that company goes under, or if I change course, my personal brand is me, and not “enter product name here”.

Like many professional speakers, Nick Morgan is also a successful author. He said that the benefits of a well-crafted personal brand have extended beyond his speaking career to help his book sales, even in a difficult market.

Nick Morgan:

All the interviews and connecting I did when my second book came out have paid off in increased book sales. Your book will disappear without a trace unless you personally take charge of marketing it and work very, very hard.

Our experts agree that personal branding is a journey, not a destination. We must think hard about our goals as speakers and consciously develop a personal brand that we can realistically (and diligently) maintain.

Three Fundamentals to Managing Your Brand

Our experts suggest three key ways to promote your personal brand online.

1. Blog it!

Nick Morgan:

The blog is fundamental. You have to have something to say, and the blog is the place to start. Start a blog. If you don’t have a blog, you don’t have an opinion, and why should anyone pay attention to you?

Aymee Buckhannon:

You can even start your blog with a freebie. I believe content is more valuable than “aesthetics” at first. However, as you begin to work your way through the online world, you will need an upgrade and a professional look that stands out from all the “freebies”.

2. Get Your Own Website

Aymee Buckhannon:

If you do not own www.YOURNAME.com, get it now! Once you are famous or you have managed to brand yourself, whoever owns that name will profit.

Jane Atkinson:

When I updated my website, I decided that “all roads lead to the book”, meaning my website’s mission was to promote my book and provide sufficient information about it and easy links to order it.

Cynthia Starks:

The best reason for a website is that when someone says, “send me some speech samples,” you can happily say, “they’re on my website. Here’s the address.” 

3. Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Aymee Buckhannon:

The main goal of sites like Facebook and Linkedin is relationship building. Your profile should be about you and not about what you sell. People on these sites are looking for others with whom they have something in common.

Jane Atkinson:

Thanks to social media, it has never been easier to build a personal brand. We need to be careful what we post if we want to maintain a credible brand. I use Facebook for more personal touches that tend to focus on my expertise, but I give hints to my personal side, like when I got my new puppy.

Cynthia Starks:

If you’re on LinkedIn, don’t forget the group LinkEds & Writers, where I’ve discovered some wonderful fellow communicators. The Quintilian Speechwriters Group is another excellent group for both corporate and freelance writers. There, you can pick the minds of some of the best speechwriters in the business on a variety of topics related to the process and business of speechwriting.

Discover More About the Experts

• Jane Atkinson (Web | Twitter) is President of Speaker Launcher and author of The Wealthy Speaker. She coaches professional speakers, celebrities, and CEOs to help focus their careers. She has represented numerous speakers who have vaulted to the top 3% of the speaking industry.
• Aymee Buckhannon (Web | Twitter) is personal branding expert and owner of My Personal Brand. She helps her clients develop cohesive personal branding for websites, blogs, and social media.
• Joe Calloway (Web | Twitter) is a nationally known speaker and author of the best-selling business book Becoming a Category of One. He helps companies align their vision, brand, and employee engagement objectives.
• Nick Morgan (Web | Twitter) is President of the presenter coaching and message development company, Public Words, Inc., and author of Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma; and Working the Room: How to Move People to Action through Audience-Centered Speaking.
• Cynthia Starks (Web) is President of Starks Communications, LLC and is a former IBM and Fortune 500 speechwriter. Leaders in business, education, and government have delivered her speeches around the world.

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Chaunce Stanton provides marketing communications support for the professional services industry, including architects, engineers, and scientists. For more than eight years, he has routinely helped teams develop messages and craft polished presentations for multimillion-dollar projects. Chaunce is an enthusiastic member of Toastmasters International in St. Paul, Minnesota’s Metropolitan Chapter.