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Who Ever Said That You Had To Show Up To Give A Good Speech?

Hey speaker, how good of a speaker are you when you don’t get a chance to show up? I’m not talking about blowing off a speaking gig, rather I’m talking about that virtual stage that all of us find ourselves occupying all too often: the teleconference. You might not view this as an opportunity to give a speech, but it is!

Why Nobody Likes Teleconferences

We all seem to spend a lot of our time in teleconferences, why does nobody seem to like them? It is my personal belief that despite the fact that most of these calls are designed to give a speaker an opportunity to share information with everyone else on the call, this rarely happens.

For some odd reason, most teleconference speakers don’t seem to do a good job of giving a speech that is designed for the teleconference environment. They can’t use the common presentation tips to make what they are saying have more impact. It might be that all too often the presenter is sitting alone in an office somewhere and they are just talking to a phone. This may allow them to forget that they are talking to a group of people and are trying to convince them of something.

Perhaps what we should do is to take just a moment and review what speakers need to do in order to make their next teleconference a success.

How To Solve The #1 Problem With Teleconferences

The biggest problem with teleconferences is that they are, after all, teleconferences. What this means is that everyone on the call is going to be unable to use their most valuable asset: their eyes. Instead they are going to have to rely on their imperfect listening skills.

You may be the most magical speaker out there, but even you would benefit if your teleconference audience could see you. That’s why it’s important that long before the teleconference starts you do some checking to see if you can change it from being a teleconference into a video conference. There are a lot of ways to do this: WebEx, Skype, etc.

Always Start With Enough Time To Finish

All speeches need to be able to fit into the allocated time. This means that you are going to have to clearly communicate to everyone that you can’t see just exactly what is going to happen during the call.

The simplest way to go about doing this is to create and distribute an agenda before the teleconference starts. This way everyone will know who is talking (you) and they’ll know how long you’ll be talking.

A Positive Attitude Is Required

I really shouldn’t have to say this, but your attitude is key to how your message is going to be received. If you start out with a positive attitude, no matter if you are talking about a change that has already happened or if you are talking about changes that may be coming, you’ll capture your audience’s attention.

You need to keep in mind that you can’t see your audience. Since you want them to focus on what you are saying, and not be working on their email, then you need to be delivering a message that they’ll want to hear. Being positive is a key part of doing this well.

It’s Not All About You

Many of us are used to getting up on a stage, delivering a speech, and then getting off of the stage. It turns out that a teleconference is a different type of beast. You need to find ways to include your audience in what you are saying.

One simple way to do this is to ask questions while you are talking. You may or may not want to get people to speak up with answers, but in today’s modern office environment you can get people to instant message or even email their answers to you even while you talk. Find ways to include your audience and they’ll be even more interested in what you are saying.

Always Know Where You Are

One of the most powerful things that a speaker has going for him or her when we are on a stage is that our audience can’t leave. Well, actually they could, but social pressure causes most of them to stay in their seats while we’re talking.

However, on a teleconference your audience can easily drift away while you’re talking. In fact, if you talk for too long, then they will almost undoubtedly leave and you may end up talking only to yourself.

The best way to prevent this from happening is to keep track of your time. Respect the fact that your audience has other things to do and other places to go. Make sure that you end early and leave plenty of time for questions about what you’ve said at the end.

What All Of This Means For You

So it turns out that really doesn’t matter what you think about teleconferences – they are here to stay. As a speaker, you need to start to look at these events as an opportunity to give a phone-based speech. This is a unique situation that truly shows the importance of public speaking skills.

However, there are a lot of different ways that a speaker can miss out on taking full advantage of this speaking opportunity. When your audience can’t see you or when you try to pack too much information into too short of a time, you’re going to be doomed to failure. You can boost your odds of success by starting with a positive attitude and making sure to include your remote audience. Finally, although it’s always important, it’s even more important while on a teleconference to keep track of your time.

Speakers have a skill set that most other people don’t have – we know how to effectively communicate information to an audience. One of the benefits of public speaking is that we’ve done this before. We need to remember all of the speaking skills that we’ve developed when we are on a teleconference. If we can do this, then just maybe next time our audience will be looking forward to their next teleconference with us.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What do you think that the maximum time that a teleconference should run is?

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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

When we are on the stage giving a speech, even if this is not easy for us to do, at least we know what we need to do. We can learn how to keep the audience’s attention, we know how to communicate information effectively, and basically we understand the importance of public speaking. We also understand how to interpret all of the signals that the audience is sending our way. All of this knowledge may be contributing to why so many speakers do such a poor job of communicating with groups when a telephone is involved…

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What Works Well For Webconferencing?

So is delivering a presentation over the web easier or harder than delivering it to a live audience? Just to make sure that we’re all on the same page, let’s agree on what webconferencing is (hint: it’s not sending your PowerPoint presentation to someone via email). For our purposes, we can define webconferencing as a way to give a presentation, hold an important meeting, or even train employees without requiring the people participating to have to travel. Thanks to phone bridges, PowerPoint decks, and high-speed Internet connections this is now a viable way to deliver presentations.

The technology is pretty slick – you can quickly come up to speed on how to technically DO a webconference. The real trick is to find out how to do a GOOD JOB of presenting using this new technology. Dave Zielinski recently had a chance to talk with Laura Vizzusi and David Goad who work for Cisco’s WebEx division. WebEx rules this space on the web so these guys really know what they are talking about. Here are their top four suggestions for webconferencing public speaker wanna be’s:

1. Prep, Prep, Prep: Just because the medium has changed, does not mean that the rules have changed. Even through you don’t have to travel to give the presentation and since, possibly, the audience won’t be able to actually see you, some people will be tempted to slack off. DON’T DO IT! You can still put your audience to sleep if you don’t deliver a polished presentation.
2. It’s All In The Voice: How you sound is even more important in a webconference than it is when you are presenting in person. Whatever you do – don’t use a speakerphone! You will sound far away and your voice will fade in and out as you move your head. DO use a headset mic if you can. In fact, stand up and present if at all possible – this will allow you to project your voice better and will allow you to use the full range of your voice.
3. That’s Why They Call Them Visual Aids: Since your audience won’t be able to look at you, they will be spending more time looking at your slides. Make sure they are worth looking at! You are also going to have to keep your slides moving right along in order to keep your audience’s attention. Slide transitions and the liberal use of photographs are always good ideas.
4. Welcome To The 21st Century: Most webconferencing tools come with a variety of bells and whistles that allow you to interact with your audience during your presentation. Used poorly, you’ll tick everyone off. Used correctly, this is a great way to dynamically engage everyone in what you are saying. Tools like interactive polls and on-screen annotations can capture and hold everyone’s attention.

Don’t forget one of the biggest benefits of webconferencing is that it is very easy to record your presentation. This is a great way to give a presentation once and then use it over and over again…

How have the webconferences that you’ve given gone so far? Do you find that they are harder or easier than presentations given in person? Do you use the fancy new technical features that come as a part of webconference tools? Do you feel that you do a better or worse job of keeping your audience’s attention? Leave some comments and let me know what you are thinking.

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