Language that gets your speeches noticed

Diagnosing document-speak

It happens when otherwise friendly, warm-blooded human beings cease to sound human and start sounding like a legal brief.

They stand up before an audience and their sentences become longer. They hide behind formality and distance. They go to great pains to appear as emotionally deceased as language can help them to achieve. For a coup de grace, they generally back it all up with a mind-numbing litany of PowerPoint slides.

The end result is predictable: mass air-gulping among the audience. When the speakers leave the room, their points are forgotten.

There is a better way

Public speaking is a thrillingly powerful medium. The human mind sits up and takes notice when another human speaks with passion and conviction. We're wired that way. But passion and conviction are choices, and their design is largely informed by language.

What sort of language?

Good speakers don't do document-speak. They practice high-impact speak. Emotive, creative and vivid. It gets them noticed and it keeps their messages front of mind, long after they've left.

Looking for a little electricity in your own presentations? Use the following six devices to add sizzle to your sentences:

Start by sounding human

When you chat with your friends, would you use a sentence such as, "It is has come to my notice, in terms of our internal policies, that wasteful expenditure is causing a detrimental effect upon our bottom-line profits"? Doubtful. A human being would say, "We're wasting too much and it's hurting us," and that's how you should speak when you stand before a group.

Remember that you are the thought-leadership in the room. When your audience perceives that you have slipped into 'formal speech delivery' mode, they will subconsciously switch off. It's as if you have given them the cue: 'Here comes the speechy stuff; you may all go to sleep. I'll wake you when I'm really communicating again.' A conversational tone keeps them engaged.

Craft interesting titles

Yes, you can deliver an address titled 'A Critical Look at the History and Production of Fireworks.' But how much more engaging to have the MC say, "Please help me to welcome Joe, with his speech titled 'Bang! - Making the Fire Work!'"

My own keynote speech is about the topic of personal initiative. I call it 'The Rules of Hamster Thinking.' Your title is an opportunity to create interest before you even stand to speak.

Metaphors help you to sum up complex ideas quickly

Certainly, you can show a busy graph depicting the ins and outs of any idea. Or you could simply use a metaphor that captures the essence of the idea, and say, "It's like..." On Top Gear, presenter Richard Hammond described a Porsche's rear-mounted engine as being, "A bit like building a pyramid with the pointy bit at the bottom."

Metaphors sum up complex ideas quickly. Most of the detail in corporate presentations is superfluous. Remember, there is a world of difference between mere information and actual message. Information requires graphs. Message can be done with metaphors.

Professional speakers never use fussy PowerPoint graphs. They know that having information is only half of a speaker's job. Communicating that information in impactful and memorable ways is the full obligation.

Repeat catch-phrases often and your point will be remembered

Simple. Memorable. Easy to repeat. Advertisers know the value of a good catch-phrase, and top speakers understand it too. Remember the war-time phrase "Loose lips sink ships"? That's the kind of easy-to-repeat slogan you should develop and use often in your presentations.

Alliteration adds impact

In one of my presentations, I speak about the glib nature of self-help quick fixes. I packaged it in the following sentence: "The treadmill of self-improvement churns out Kellogg's Rice Competitors, Kentucky Fried Performers, Supersized McMen and Women; egos bigger than buildings." Alliteration adds musicality to your sentences. Its rapid-fire nature also helps you to create the impression of being 'on a roll' when you speak, which adds to the perception of passion.

Visual devices bring dry information to life

Don't just give information. Create mental pictures. The human mind becomes more engaged when points are delivered in story form, with character, setting, emotion and the description of action. We do not 'feel' a PowerPoint graph the way that we feel a story.

The next time you pen a presentation, remember that document-speak kills speeches. High-impact language gives your script mouth-to-mouth. The human mind sits up and takes notice when a person speaks with passion and conviction.

Take the time and trouble to design language that captures the imagination - give them a linguistic wedgie - and your audiences will thank you for it!