Make sure your audience gets the point

A client asked me recently why she wasn't getting the results she wanted from putting her department's case at business meetings. Paula is an intelligent, knowledgeable, articulate and confident woman, very successful in her field, the sort you would expect to win through every time, and she couldn't understand why she was making so little impact at these meetings.

Fortunately, the answer turned out to be something she could quite easily change. Although she was powerful and persuasive when speaking to one or two people, when addressing larger groups, Paula unconsciously adopted a persona that was intended to be professional but was actually rather elusive. My impression, as I listened to her delivering what she was planning to say at the next meeting, was of someone who clearly knew what she was talking about. I agreed with what she said as she went along - and yet afterwards I couldn't remember anything specific she had told me. It was all somehow nebulous and I understood why she wasn't getting what she wanted: people weren't grasping what it was she was actually asking for.

To rectify this, I encouraged Paula to break down her speech into bite-sized chunks, to bring her voice down at the end of each one and to pause between them. I also suggested she speak a bit more slowly and use less jargon.

The results were satisfyingly positive. Paula's point of view became clear to her colleagues and many more of her requests began to be granted.

Public speaking is about communication. When you're preparing your speech or presentation, try to summarise your message in a sentence or two. Once you've identified the essence of what you want to say, you can expand on it but, if you don't identify the essence first, it may never become apparent to your audience what your core message is.