Tips for Persuasive Public Speaking

March 27, 2019

Public speaking is challenging and well sought after skill, and one that can help you in future conferences, teaching positions, and other areas of your life. Communications professor and public speaking expert Clair Canfield teaches how to properly communicate ideas and craft a narrative to help you succeed.

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Summary

Find your focus
- understand where you’re going and the most effective way of getting there.
Adapt to your audience
- what you say, how you say it.
- watch them, and adapt as you go.
Maximize signal to noise ratio
- Physiological Noise: within your body (ex. if it’s too hot or cold, hungry, in pain, etc.)
- Physical Noise: people talking, people’s electronics/walking by
- Psychological Noise: your thoughts. This can get to where you’re not even listening anymore and can happen without you even noticing it
  - Ask yourself: “What was that word he said? What does it mean? Should I know what that word means?”
- Diminish “Bad” noise: Shut the door, draw the blinds, provide food
- Boost your signal: Being prepared.
Effective Repetition
- People forget 40% of what you say, so repetition is a powerful rhetorical device
- Organize effectively: Intro, body, conclusion (tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them).
- Different than redundancy. Examples, delivery, Ask the audience to list the things your talking about.
Your message and your delivery are key they play into the signal. Purposefulness and variance in your voice (not monotone) are important to keeping people engaged. Emphasis can signal transition. You can also reinforce transition with your body by walking from one place to another.
Practice: It comes naturally over time. Get feedback on what is distracting to others when you’re speaking. Soon, public speaking will become like riding a bike. When you know your content and concepts really well you’ll be able to deliver them effectively and it will feel more natural.
Finding your Identity: Be authentic and sincere. You want it to feel like you not someone else. Nobody’s got a perfect speech, just do the best you can do right now.
Ask yourself: What do I want to accomplish? Why am I here?
Know what you’re passionate about and say yes, because you have a reason and you love. Figure out your why. Example: “I love transformative processes and I can talk about them because I love it even if it will make me feel anxious or I wont be compensated.”
Being anxious and nervous is not a bad thing- it means you care and that’s good! People can tell when someone who’s talking doesn’t care, so caring is good even if it will bring some anxiety.
- Your preparation starts as soon as you agree to speak. Pay attention to what you want to do to manage that anxiety (Fight, flight, freeze: procrastination, numbing).
  - Practice and prepare. Even if you don’t want to, it will help you in the final moment.
  - BREATHE.
  - Stop catastrophizing and thinking of the worst case scenario.
  - Positive visualization, imagine positive reactions to your talk, imagine yourself giving it with confidence and ease (your brain can’t tell the different between visualization and it actually happening).
  - Positive self talk/growth mindset: People want to hear what I have to say, I am learning and doing my best, I have important things to say.
  - Right before you get up do what you need to do to get out the excess energy. Flexercise: flex your toes, calves, thighs, glutes, stomach, hands, arms, chest, hold it all and then release. Finish with deep breaths. Imagine the first few things you’re going to say and then go for it.
  - While speaking: You’ll feel better and more connected if you make eye contact with others. Have a plant in the audience, someone who will make you feel good. Remember to breathe AND pause.
  - If you’re going to do a well prepared speech, you should do an hour of preparation for each minute you’re going to be speaking.
On the tension between being you and adapting to your audience: Choose carefully. Give people what they need to make choices about what they’re going to do. If you chose to be true to yourself there will be consequences, but you can learn and they can learn from that. Challenging them will make them think and gives them an opportunity to grow. Make a conscious choice, because then you’ll feel good about it regardless of outcome and you can learn from it. Ask for frequent feedback.
Being adaptable makes you more accessible to others and helps you talk to make a bigger impact. So be willing to adapt and change.
When your time changes
- Does time matter? Yes. People don’t usually complain about you going short, but when speakers go overtime you lose your audience members, they’re no longer listening.
- If you can’t keep it within the parameters it wont matter how good you are, you’ll loose people.
- Remember what your purpose is, what’s important, and what your goal is.
When you’re anxious, all the things you care about will be made clear. That will also bring all your issues into the room with you.
- Face needs are needs that we desire other people to see us as. We want people to see us as:
  - Competent: We are capable of doing the thing we are trying to do.
  - Independent: We make our own choices; we are not controlled.
  - Likable: Someone others want to know, be close to, and spend time with.
    - Facebook only shows the good things, you want LIKES. “Like me, like the stuff, I am capable.”
- When speaking, all three face needs are at risk.
- “This started with me and something I wanted to accomplish but after that it’s irrelevant and it’s about the other people in the room.” They’re thinking about them and what do you have to offer them? Focus externally and your internal anxieties will calm.
How women and men are perceived using humor:
- that’s a reflection of a larger problem. It’s about a political lens not a public speaking issue.
- You can only speak out of your body and there will be a different response based on what body you have. What you wear also plays a roll in how credible you appear.
- Put your energy into what you can control and let go of what you can’t control. Make the choices you can make but let the rest go.
- As audience members we need to be careful to how we are listening, be aware of your biases, instead of making snap judgments based on how people look or how they’re dressed.
  - An example of bias: Blind orchestra auditions: more men vs. women in certain instruments. They’d play behind a curtain so they couldn’t see gender and base it purely on performance.