How have you improved your communication and presentation skill? I take too long to get a point across and feel like I don’t have enough weight in my speech.

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I am a poor communicator, so what I do is type up my script and run through several times before to either myself, my fiancé or my cat. It adds a few steps and takes some time, but it’s helped me a ton.

likehelpful

This is a great comms tactic. I won’t present without running through at least 10x. Driving in my car is the best—pasts time quickly.

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I'm sure that you've been asked to take 300 slides and condense them to the minimum 4 that need to be shared with the C-Suite for 5 minutes of a meeting. When selecting those slides you select only the information that is absolutely critical to your audience and shows exactly what you need them to make an informed decision on. Everything that isn't important gets eliminated pretty quickly.

Now, take all the thoughts in your brain on a given subject, and pull out just the ones that are critical to getting your point across. You get 30 seconds to two minutes of speaking time.

likesmarthelpful

BLUF. Bottom line up front.

Get your main point across first, then provide your supporting details.

likehelpful

Yes, exactly the opposite of creative story writing.

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Get this for helping you get your thoughts out. This should help you lessen the fluff in your message and help get straight to the point. Not the cure! Just a starting point :) hope this helps

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likehelpful

Me talk good now.

likefunny

I have to work on this a lot and have tried a ton of things over the years. I apologize in advance the long essay here but it’s my chance to share what I learned 😬

You highlighted a few different areas to tackle:

1) Communication skills – this covers a lot but in general your word choice, concise thinking, articulation comes with a lot of practice. You mentioned Toastmasters and the reason why that helped me is because it forced me to learn to think and speak about things on the fly. Table topics practice with friends (or in front of a recorded camera) will help you get used to speaking comfortably. Then next layer is to start talking in frameworks or using tactics to guide the audience around your thoughts. Then work on storytelling. If you think about it, it’s way easier to talk passionately on things like favorite movies or hobbies and things you already know. Intentionally reading more around interesting topics, watching and observing people talk or give speeches, are all ways to expand vocabulary and get more comfortable talking.

2) Presentation skills. Again this comes with practice since not everyone is a naturally gifted presenter. You’d be surprised at the types of leaders out there who need to write down and carefully script every last detail and memorize their speeches and pitches. The reason is because once you get to the point of memorization, you worry less about content and can focus more about the delivery. This was game changing for me. For things you can prepare for ahead of time, do just that. Focus on crafting a good script first, then memorize, then practice delivery in front of others or record yourself.

3) Enough weight in my speech. You’re probably referring to content (which is covered in the above points), but I’ll focus on delivery, tone, articulation. I actually have gotten professional help here via voice coaching and a speech therapist. I have some natural accents due to my ethnicity and things like how I pronounce certain sounds, breathing, monotonous speech, speed, and projection were all things we worked on. Slowing down my speech, timely pauses, dynamic intonation were areas I was able to greatly improve on. Now you don’t need a professional to tell you these things – you can YouTube exercises, download apps like Speeko and record yourself in front of a camera – but I’ve found that coaching really helps personalize things for you. You can spend $100-200/hr on a coach for a few months or spend less than $60/hr with a service like Expressable.

Lastly, I wanted to just say you’re probably not as bad as you think. Once you accept that it’ll be easier to get out of your head and focus on getting better. Anxiety and fear of public speaking really messes up communication! But I applaud you for wanting to improve and there’s definitely clear actionable ways for you to get better.

(I can probably go back and make this more concise 🤗)

likeupliftingsmart

This is amazing! All of what you’ve mentioned here is something that we could all use to get better at.

Thank you for taking the time to write such an elaborate response!

I was, indeed, specifically referring to the intonation and delivery aspect of speech. Some people say nothing but can have heads nod in vigorous approval whereas others have substance but such poor delivery. Naturally we want to work on both of these.

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I create talking points, similar to a politician. Then I ad-lib the story around the points, but make sure I always hit the talking points. It will much more fluid and natural when presented that way.

likehelpful

Thanks everyone for all these insights. I have to say that I’ve been flirting with the idea of joining Toastmasters for quite some time now. I’m so afraid of the experience that I have been putting it off.

I’m going to review all the material you’ve all shared and then just try to make it to toast masters in two weeks.

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If you’ve ever done case interviews, sort of follow a similar approach using the “pyramid” method of communication. Main points right up front, and supporting statements afterwards using a clear structure. You begin with the “so what” and then work your way back using supporting facts.

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3 bullets are the magic number. Goal is to structure your thoughts by giving your audience something to follow. Similar to STAR.

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A1 has a great process. I also think, “what are the 2-3 critical points to get across, what is the most compelling facts to support them?” The slides, and your speaking, will then flow from that.

likehelpful

Read "Pitch Anything" by Oren Flaff. Pitching that applies to consulting. It will change your entire approach.

likehelpful

I think most of my points are covered above.

My only comment would be, try not to act overly smart. Ppl who desperately want to come off as smart tend to ramble and go on tangents. Just focus on your points and your expertise will show.

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You can consider starting with your main take-away and following it with 3 key supporting points. With an engaged audience, questions may follow that allow deeper discussion. Otherwise, move on — keeping in mind that alignment on next steps is still needed.

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Having worked in Deloitte before, and as we often joke around when there is a lot of slides and cosmetics to add into we often say: 'that's the typical job of a bullshit consultant'.. but I would say you need to convey a story line like holding the hand of the client and show the path. The idea, arguments, etc. story line will come naturally after. Keep that in mind and you will sound less 'bullshitman' if you have Data and use-cases it's better 😉

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I’ve done coke and set calendar meetings to go to toastmasters and still havent. I’m actually not bad at presenting but do get some fear with it. Need to just do it

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Did you do coke to get to toast masters? It’s such a shaming program though. Reveals the truth of how many uhhhs and likes I use.

I recorded myself giving a speech and it was so hard to listen to myself.

Signing up for TM right this moment.

Structure your points. “Here’s the point, why, and why you should care”. Higher ups don’t care about data eccentricities, they care about actionable intelligence

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👀

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