5 Bad Habits That Hinder You from Becoming an Exceptional Public Speaker

Communicating confidently is a great skill for all leaders to possess. This kind of thing doesn't just happen on its own however. It takes work, practice and more practice. The time you give to improve your communication skills is time well spent. I came across this post from The Public Speaking Blog and thought I'd pass it along. I took a little license and made some minor changes along the way. All in all the post is pretty much the same.

Bad Habit #1 - Reading From The Script
The main culprit here is comfort. A script gives the speaker a false sense of security. They think that with a script, they won’t have to memorize anything. And even better, they won’t have to engage their audience since they are busy listening to him read.

Unfortunately, we all know that that’s not the case. When you read from a script, you are forced to sound monotone. You will scare the audience with your bobbing head and worse, you give people the feeling that you are reading someone else words.

So what’s the solution?
Stop reading your script! But that doesn’t mean you should not have a script. In fact, I strongly recommend you to have one but it should be written like you are speaking. So instead of formal writing like “Scientists from the Harvard University have discovered that when a speaker incorporates emotive words into their speeches, they have a 90% chance of influencing the audience to their way of thinking”, you can make it more conversational like “I was just reading this scientific article and I learnt that if you use emotive words to communicate, you will have a higher chance of influencing your audience to your way of thinking… how cool is that!”

But I don’t have a very good memory, how will I be able to remember everything? Well, you don’t have to. With a clear structure, there isn’t really a need to memorize word for word. All you need to do is to remember your key points and how to flow from one point to another.

And if you really have to read from the script, here’s how you should do it to ensure you still engage your audience.

It’s call the See, Stop, Say approach recommended by James C Hume. author of Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln.

Here’s the rule of thumb - never ever speak when your eyes are on your script.

First, look down and take a snapshot of your script. Memorize a chunk of words. Bring your head up and then pause for a second. When you are ready, say what you have memorized in your own words. It’s a three-step process: see, stop and say. It is very important that you pause. Yes, it may be weird for you but in reality, the pause helps make your speech conversational. It also creates anticipation, which further deepen the impact.

Bad Habit #2 - Winging It
How many of you have heard of these infamous excuses - “You should just wing it so that you sound natural on stage” or “If you prepare too much, you will get a nervous breakdown.” Personally I think they are all wrong. My theory is this, the reason why some speakers sound so natural is because they are well prepared. They know exactly what they need to say and how to say it, that’s why they look confident and sound natural. They are so well prepared that they can focus on interacting with the audience. However when you try to wing a speech, you will set yourself up for failure.

I know this because I was like this once upon a time. I thought that if I wing it (say whatever that comes into my mind), I will look professional and confident. But as it turned out, I was terribly wrong. The outcome was horrendous. I did not know what I was saying half the time, my audience ended up getting confused and I felt lousy after my speech. So please don’t try to justify your laziness. Hard work counts.

So what’s the solution?
Prepare, prepare, prepare! The more certainty you have on your speech material, the more confident you will be . Remember, the best speeches are never written, they are re-written!

Bad Habit #3 - Beating Around The Bush
There is a well known formula that most veteran speakers adopt to deliver their speech. (1) Tell them what you are going to tell them. (2) Tell them. (3) Tell them what you have told them. However, many speakers out there do this instead. They tell you what they are going to tell you and then they tell you. And they tell you again. And again. And again. And again. And… again. By the time they tell you what they have told you, you have already fallen asleep.

Beating around the bush is a function of the speaker not being clear of what they want to say. As a result, they do a word diarhoea and it stinks!

Another reason why a speaker beats around the bush is because he is not well prepared. As a result, he try to stretch a ten minute point to thirty minutes, so that he can fill up time. And it will come to a point of time where the audience will just shut down because they have heard it already.

So what’s the solution?
Firstly, the speaker has to be clear on his speech objectives. What’s his message? What is it that he wants the audience to remember? What is the one point he want his audience to apply? Once he is clear on his speech objectives, he can then search for stories, examples and analogies to help support his points.

Bad Habit #4 - Failing To Do Your Research
I have seen speakers who will revel on a topic that makes absolutely no connection with the audience. Try sharing with a bunch of 20 year olds the importance of retirement planning or teaching a roomful of women how to dismantle a car, and you will know what I mean. For the 20 years old, you are not addressing a current problem that they feel challenged by. For the women, they are not exactly car lovers. So as a speaker, it is very important not to assume what your audience wants. Instead, you should go old fashion style and research on your audience! It pays literally.

I know of a professional speaker who gets paid $50K for one three hour gig. When I asked him for his secret, he send me his 10 page pre-event questionaire. Two months before his gig, he will get the meeting planner to fill up the pre-event questionaire. In his pre-event questionaire, he will find out about the company’s recent success stories. He will find out who their competitors are and what the employees talk about at their water coolers. He will walk the extra mile by calling up employees to verify the information and extract more. The number of people he interviews is directly proportional to the amount of money he is paid.

Why does he do that? Because that way, he will know exactly what his audience needs and wants. And in his three hours gig, he gives them exactly what they want. Doesn’t sound like rocket science, does it?

So what’s the solution?
You've got to know your audience inside-out. And here’s another secret shared by another champion speaker, you must learn how to make your audience the heroes. Go figure!

Bad Habit #5 - Too Many Uhh and Urms
Do you know that the number of ums and ers in your speech is inversely proportional to how confident your audience perceive you to be? In other words, if you have a lot of these pause fillers in your speech, no matter how confident or well prepared you are, your audience is going to think that you are an amateur. If you are delivering a sales presentation to your client, their level of trust for you is going to go down by a few notches. If you are pitching to a panel of investors, you are going to lose points compared to another entrepreneur who has more rigor in their speaking.

That’s why it is crucial for speakers to be conscious about their speaking and make an effort to exterminate these word pests.

So what’s the solution?
It all starts with awareness. When you start to pay attention to your delivery, you will be able to catch yourself unleashing these word pests. And the more you practice catching yourself, the less inclined you will be in adding urms and ahs in your speech. It helps to have a friend or two to point out and count your pause fillers each time you speak, so that you can start tracking your progress. In Toastmasters, they even have a fine system to help deter you from polluting your speech with the pause fillers.

Here’s another solution. Get used to the silence. One of the reasons why speakers litter their speech with the ums and ahs is because they are uncomfortable with the silence. So when they transit from one point to another and they are thinking of what to say, the silence causes them to say something. However, if you begin to use silence as a tool to underscore a point, you will notice that there is a lesser need for you to use pause fillers in your speech.

Lastly, start practicing not using pause fillers in your everyday conversation. Make it a habit NOT to use pause fillers. Try it in your phone conversation with your friend. Try it in your dinner conversation. Try it in your short meetings. The more you are used to not using pause fillers, the easier it will be for you to speak fluently in your major presentations.