Page 91 - Kindness - No Forward

If We Don’t Know It, We Won’t Discuss It

Or, in other words, if we don’t know our material we won’t talk about it.

For many speakers, this is scary. Taking the podium without our
prompts…those written-out speeches, index cards, and other aids.

We should command enough knowledge of our material so that we
don’t need to read a speech. Over-reliance on notes is a major
distraction to an audience; every time we look down at our notes, we
lose some of our audience.

It is better to know our material and use a manner which is more
conversational when speaking to our audience. They are forgiving
when we pause to remember something, but less forgiving when we
stumble along trying to be perfect.

I recently had a client, the CEO of a major firm, who was preparing for a
presentation to he shareholders. He practiced his presentation for me.
Reading it. It didn’t sound like his normal, sincere, personal way of
speaking. It sounded just like what it was---something that was
prepared and then read.

When he finished, I asked him why he didn’t just get one of his VPs read
the speech.

“Because they want to hear me,” he replied.

“But that’s not you.”

And it wasn’t. He was warm, sincere, and relaxed when he spoke
naturally. When he read, he was stilted and cold. It wasn’t him.

And it’s not any of us when we read a prepared speech.

A preferred way to use not is to have brief one-word or two-word
descriptors written on 3x5 cards to lead you along during your
presentation.

But there are a couple of times when it is okay to read.

One is when you are quoting directly from someone else. The other is
when you are quoting figures of some kind. In both of these cases it is
appropriate; possibly even desirable, to read directly from your source.