Have you ever wondered how those great speakers that you love to listen to have
a conversational approach to their delivery? We're going to teach you how to
have what's called an extemporaneous delivery style coming up.
Hello, friends. I'm Alex Lyon and Communication Coach, this channel, is here
to help you increase your impact and lead your teams to higher levels of
excellence. One of the ways you can do that is through better presentation
skills. Today we're going to unpack how to speak extemporaneously. In other words,
conversationally. Let's put it this way. Nobody wants to hear you give a
memorized presentation. Nobody wants to listen to you read a presentation word
for word. And here's how I know this. Do you want to listen to someone read a
presentation word for word? Do you want to listen to someone like a robot give
you a memorized word-for-word presentation. Nobody likes it and unless
you're President of the United States and you're using teleprompters, you
probably won't ever be asked to do this in a professional setting. Almost
everybody across the board that's at that high level of speaking uses what we
call extemporaneous delivery style. And that means when you know the material, so
that you could speak conversationally, with limited notes, in a structured way.
Now it sounds pretty basic and you appreciate it when you see it but it
actually takes quite a bit of work to get there. But once you know how to do it
this way, I doubt you'll ever want to go back to reading your notes word for word
again. So, first, let's talk about how to do this. The first tip is that you have
to commit to a structure. The structure is the backbone of the whole
presentation that helps you keep your place and helps you move forward
according to your plan. You're going to need a really clear introduction, body,
and conclusion. And within each of those sections, in you're introduction for
example you're going to have certain parts that you hit. Four parts in your introduction.
You're going to know your clear two or three or four main points you're going
to hit with nice transitions and information in each of those buckets. And
you're going to have a really clear conclusion. You're going to know how you
end. So you have to have a clear structure. If you don't have a clear
structure it's going to be very difficult to get comfortable enough to
have a conversational style. The second tip is that you're going to have to
practice probably more than you realize. I recommend practicing a
presentation about ten times. Now that might seem like a lot. However, over the
years, I've been doing coaching and teaching college for about 20 years in
professional settings it's really no different, if you only practice two to
three times you're just not going to do that well that's not enough repetitions
to get completely comfortable with a topic, completely comfortable expressing
yourself and connecting while you're sharing information. Time and time again
when I pull really skilled speakers aside, I say, about how many times did you
practice? the number ten comes up a lot. Some people that are exceptionally
gifted might only practice eight or so times. Most people 10 or even more. So
practice about ten times. Now the way you practice ten times becomes really
critical if you want to speak conversationally. Let's say the first
time you practice you use a full set of notes. Now the number one killer is too
many notes and so you want to pare down your notes to the bare minimum that you
need to give that presentation. So you start off the first, and you let's say
you're practicing ten times, the first two or three times you practice, you have
your full set of notes. The more you practice the more you should try to get
away from that, look up a little more often so that in the next two to three
times you practice I recommend cutting those notes about in half. So maybe you
have let's say you start off with four pages of notes, cut it down to about two
pages of notes. And instead of full sentences, you want to pare it down to
maybe half sentences and then you practice it another two or three times.
And then the last two or three times you practice you should be all the way down
to very simple bullet talking points that are just maybe even a single word
or a short phrase. And the goal here is that as you're practicing that eighth,
ninth, or tenth time all you have to do is look at your notes just for a moment
and you see maybe even one keyword, maybe it just says Hawaii, and you know you're
going to tell a story about Hawaii that lasts about 30-40 seconds. So now
there's no reason to really look at your notes beyond glancing down seeing the
word and putting your eyes back up on your listeners and
connecting with them conversationally in that story about Hawaii. So you want to
pare your notes way back and practice that way. So the next tip is each time
you practice, it say it in a variety of ways. In other words, don't get locked in
to using the exact same sentences, the exact same phrases each time you present.
I even sometimes deliberately will say things differently each time I do it
because it gives me another way to express it. In fact, a telltale sign for
me when I'm watching a speaker and I can tell they're just memorizing this word
for word is they might start a sentence a certain way and then not remember how
to finish it and so they'll go back and they'll start it over again a little
differently so they can land at the end of sentence the way they originally
practiced it. That's going to start to sound very robotic. You want to say
things in as many ways as possible when you're practicing so that in the moment
no matter what happens you can move ahead in that presentation smoothly and
still maintain that nice conversational approach. So practice it in a variety of
ways. The other thing you want to do is keep your practice sessions realistic.
Keep some real world. So for example I like to, even though I'm alone when I'm
practicing, oftentimes I like to look up away from my notes while I'm practicing
because it's a good habit to get into to look up. So if I practice only looking
at my notes, well that's a habit I'm engraining so that when I go to my actual
presentation, I'm going to have a habit of looking at my notes. So you want to
practice by looking up sometimes. In fact, I know a good friend of mine
actually set up stuffed animals and even put pillows inside of winter coats and
put faces and paper on top of them and then when they were practicing that
presentation they were looking at their stuffed animals and looking at those
dummies they made. And during the presentation, it was much easier because they
practice that way to connect because they made their practicing realistic. Now
obviously they're not real people but maybe you have a roommate or even a dog
that you can present to to keep it real. Once you're really comfortable and
you've kept it real, sometimes people will even add distractions so they might
turn the television on in the background are some music on in the background or
do it in a somewhat public area. You might look a little crazy but if you can
present conversationally and get through your outline in a nice extemporaneous
fashion even with distractions, then you're much more likely to speak
conversationally in the moment. You never know for example when there's going to be
someone outside with a jackhammer, someone outside with a lawn mower. Someone's
going to come in late. Someone's going to leave early. In the moment, every little
every little distraction can really heighten your nervousness and throw
you off if you're not prepared for it. So the benefits of its speaking
extemporaneously cannot be underestimated. First of all, audiences
prefer this style of delivery from the presenters far and away. Nobody wants to
hear you memorize or or read your presentation. Believe me, you don't want
to do it anymore and then you want to listen to it. And this is a skill that
you can build on if you can break the habit get away from that safety net all
those notes, extemporaneous delivery, that conversational approach, is a really
great skill to build on. You can use it in all kinds of professional settings.
You're going to bring it with you for the rest of your life. So I highly
recommend you take the plunge pare those notes down to the bare minimum and start
practicing in a realistic way. The question of the day what are your tips
for conversational delivery for making things much more extemporaneous. I would
love to hear your comments in that section below. So, thanks. God bless. And I
hope that you speak more conversationally in your very next
presentation.