What Type of Speaker Are You?

Many of us attend presentations that require the speaker to use a microphone. Without proper advanced preparation, things can go awry. We attended such a presentation recently and were asked to help the speaker. Here are our top tips for your next presentation:

• Use a microphone any time there are 30 or more people in the audience.
• Use good posture. Stand straight when speaking. Align your head with your spine.
• When you first start to speak, push your feet into the floor.  A solid stance will help you sound and look much more authoritative and confident.
• Conduct a sound check ahead of time. It’s embarrassing to speak into a microphone and find it’s not turned on or working properly.  And it is painful to listen to someone yelling for the entire presentation.
• Speaking of yelling, don’t.  Remember, the microphone amplifies your voice.  You do not need to push or project much.  Let the microphone do its job.  Your audience will be glad to have you talking to them.
• If you’re a motivational speaker, use motivational words and body language.  Don’t yell.  Period.
• If you tend to get loud and preachy (or even screechy) when you’re speaking about something in which you are passionate, get help from us on modulating your voice.  Nothing worse than a screechy-preacher.
• Learn how to turn the mic on, off, and use the mute and standby modes.
• Don’t get caught making a private comment, because you didn’t know your mic was on.  That means you, Mr. Biden.
• Use natural voice inflections and vary them.  Say it like you MEAN it!
• Be cognizant not to speak too slowly or your audience will mentally drift.
• Make sure your voice has rhythm and pitch.

 We’ll talk about microphone placement in our next blog on Tuesday.