Public speaking
Created | Updated Feb 21, 2003
Historical documents indicate that public speaking was an activity and object of study in the ancient Grecian city-states and the Roman Empire. However, public speaking has probably been a part of all civilizations since very early times.
In The Rhetoric, Aristotle detailed information on effective persuasive speaking. He identified ethos, pathos, and logos as three methods a speaker uses to persuade. Ethos refers to a speaker's credibility and his or her character as revealed through the communication, pathos to a speaker's emotional appeals or the emotions felt by the audience, and logos to a speaker's logical appeals. The teachings of Ptah-hotep in pre-modern Egypt and Africa (2500 B.C.) emphasize the importance of a speaker's demeanor and known character.
A rhetorician may identify with the audience and their perception as an important part of public speaking. In fact rhetoric maybe effective only if it stirs up emotions in its audience and wins over hostile audiences. Although these days this may be true only of political speechmaking.
Ethos/The speaker: Rhetoric is a performance art, inseparable from physical persona or body language and charisma, which maybe welcoming and may make people feel comfortable. The voice is a tool used by modulating it, raising it, lowering it, by well-timed pauses, to highlight the importance of relevant points. Similarly placement of hands and also maintaining eye contact are also an important part of the act.
Logos/The message: Actual speech content should be determined by its purpose. Business meetings where both parties have fixed agendas and outcomes they hope to gain should be very focused, as time is of essence. Educational/instructional/informative speeches should be interesting as it could have audiences, which range from attentive to indifferent. All speeches should be factually correct.
Pathos/The Audience: We must first of all understand this, that there are many kinds of people, for some, utility is most important, and the others, credibility. Before the latter kind it is best to exemplify merit, credibility, trustworthiness while before the former, the gain and enjoyment of profit.
There are four main genres of public speech.
1. Demonstrative: observance of social occasions e.g., weddings, funerals.
2. Deliberative: effecting judicial and administrative outcomes e.g., lawsuits, and legislation.
3. Informative: communicating information e.g., educational and training
4. Persuasive: effecting business outcomes e.g., presentations, sales pitch
Demonstrative: Also called panegyric (Greek) and known as the art of praise. This is a ceremonial genre of oratory, especially used for such occasions as funerals. Modern examples of demonstrative orations include inaugural and keynote addresses. Such speeches may be said to (define and) celebrate the values of the community. The genre was often may also be an oratory of display--the "set piece."
Deliberative: The "art of persuading and dissuading," this is the genre of political and judicial debate, but it is also the major genre concerned with the giving of advice in general.
Informative Speaking
Informative speeches generally concentrate on explaining, telling how something works, what something means, or how to do something. A speaker who gives an informative speech usually tries to give his or her audience information without taking sides.
Persuasion: It is impossible to escape persuasive speaking, and persuasion has consequences. Change can occur when persuasion takes place. Persuasion is the process that occurs when a communicator (sender) influences the values, beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of another person (receiver) and motivates the receiver towards certain outcomes.
Example, sales pitch: Everyone, at least some of the time, practices the art of the pitch, pitching ideas and projects or company’s products or services or even pitching themselves. John was a former drummer of a rock band. He now runs InfoVision, a startup software company.
The pitch is a high-stakes pitch, that aims to get greater funding. The venue, an invitation only gathering of the techno-elite, more than 800 top high-tech executives, analysts, institutional investors, VCs, and select members of the media. Companies would be pitching what they hope will be the next generation of grand-slam gadgetry.
John will get his six minutes, but he has only about 30 seconds to make an impact. A breakout performance would depend on preparation, which should be at least a week until demo day, writing and rewriting a dozen scripts, analyzing videotaped performance. The goal is to make it all look effortless.
Rule #1 Know your audience.
War room: The conference room with several laptops, a video camera, and a mega-monitor. For starters, John wants to kick off his pitch with a drum solo, assuming that a 36-second salvo will rouse the crowd.
The plan: John bangs out a quick riff and announces that he had been a professional musician who had played just the drums. He'll then segue into his pitch. His advances in software technology, he's no longer merely a drummer, he's a one-man symphony. The point is this: His $150,000 enterprise-wide software, searches a company's data resources and rapidly fetches and organizes once hard-to-get-at business info, thereby opening unimagined information-gathering realms for corporate decision makers.
But this "creative" opener is a gamble. Misreading the audience is an unforgivable sin. A blitz on the drums might just put off the 800 less-than-playful strangers who may be at the venue. If pitcher’s wants to take a risk, playing the solo at the end of the sell is better. If he bombs at the beginning he may never recover. People will remember him as the guy who played the drums, not as the guy who rocked the world with the first true business-data portal.
Rule #2 Focus on the message.
If there's too much technical jargon, there maybe too many limp sound bites, also the pitch may exceed time limits. If all of it can’t be said in six minutes, it is better to focus on two or three key messages and making them simple and convincing with evidence to back up the message.
Reorganizing messages from top to bottom, using colored markers to draw rectangular boxes called "message containers"
Message containers: The "opening" box represents the drum-playing solo (which John insisted on, despite concerns). Within a "subject" box are the phrases that he'll use to announce the "InfoVision business solution." Three "agenda" boxes contain the "what I'm going to tell you" message. The "body" boxes beneath each agenda item make up the "I'm telling you" part. Then comes the "summary" ( "what I just told you" ) and, finally, the "conclusion" ( "what I want you to do" ).
The pitch should be clear, compelling, and as comprehensive as it can be under time-crunched circumstances. Now the tough part: stage presence.
Rule #3 Know thyself.
This can be known from feedback received from large audiences, that is, what the pitchers body or his voice says. More important, how do others perceive him? According to research conducted by psychologist Albert Mehrabian, 55% of what audiences remember, relates to what they see, 38% relates to the way the information is presented, and just 7% relates to what a speaker actually says.
Seeing a video of a recent performance, John began to understand. He scans the room, instead he should try to make direct eye contact. Good speakers don't address crowds, they talk to individuals. Deliver a complete thought to one person in the audience, then pause, glance at the script, grab the next thought, and share it with a new person in another part of the room. The pitch should play out as a series of one-on-one conversations.
Back to the videotape: The pitcher hands are floundering around his hips, he's also shifting his weight from side to side, which makes him seem unsure of himself. John tries another run-through, this time sitting down and everything about the pitch changes. Once he's freed from worrying about where to put his hands and how he should move, his face relaxes, his eyes brighten, his voice becomes animated, and even his language becomes more vivid. He uses his voice instead, raising it, lowering it, slowing it down, speeding it up and trying more pauses. A well-timed pause lets a point sink in far better than any adjective.
Rule #4 Be nervous on the day of the presentation (that means that the pitch is ready)
Day one of demo, and 20-plus contenders had already presented. The theatrically backlit stage looked like something from a Rolling Stones tour. Easily 100 feet long, the setup included a talk-show-like lounge area for the host and Godzilla-size video screens that loom at each end.
The host introduced the company and the pitcher at 9:15 a.m., and two clocks blinked to life, poised for the six-minute countdown. Drumsticks raised above his kit, John grins and unleashes a cranium-crushing volley. A tape of his performance shows real improvement. His enthusiasm, passion, energy, and genuineness came through.
The audience's response to the pitch isn't harsh, but the feedback is consistent: The drums weren't effective. He didn't establish their relevancy, took an unwarranted leap when he assumed that an IT crowd would appreciate a drawn-out musical analogy. The audience might be listening, or they might be thinking about the strength-to-weight ratio of the drumhead.
The pitcher also lost some contact with the audience by pitching solo. He had to punch the keyboard (to manipulate the software demo) and to woo the crowd at the same time. Most presenters had a colleague play mouse jockey while they focused on their message.
Others in the audience were astounded when the pitcher announced that the company had $10 million in venture capital financing from the VC Fund. Several VCs wondered what that prestigious firm had seen that they hadn't. In retrospect, the funding part of the message, a confirmation of credibility if ever there was one, should have come earlier in the presentation
Presenters must satisfy two criteria to earn the title of Demo Gods. They must show near-contagious levels of enthusiasm, second, their message must be crystal clear. It was better to try to win over individuals, not the entire room, and that made a difference. The pitcher may not have won the crowd, but he pitched a perfect game to someone who counted. When sharing the stage with pitchers from many other companies, doing something memorable helps drive the message.
Action Item: Practice Pitch
In every competitive pitch, there's a winner and a loser. It is recommended to create a war room to help triumph over the enemy. The war room is any place where the pitch team can brainstorm, research prospective clients as well as competitors, strategize, and rehearse. It's a place for creativity and focus.
Sidebar: Pitch Coaches
Taking the time to prepare the pitch is the key to its success. Training workshops specialize in face-to-face pitch tools for winning new business.
Sidebar: Quick Pitch
Planning a pitch for a chance run-in with a potential customer may sound subversive. But the fact is, almost anywhere is better for winning business than the space between the four walls of a corporate boardroom. Some tips.
1. Never opening with "What do you do?" It's a lazy question, and it leads to a dead-end conversation.
2. Listening for clues that tell us how the person looks at the world and helps understand a potential customer's experience and values, and hence customize the pitch.
3. Not carrying on about yourself. Top business developers are succinct, natural, and compelling: Whatever they say about themselves is relevant to the listener.
4. Not being too quick to direct the conversation to business, chatting about a general business topic, perhaps something in the day's news, before making a segue into your agenda.
5. If someone is disinclined to chat, acting accordingly. It's better to show restraint, to exchange business cards, and to leave a good impression.
Sidebar: Pitcher's Game Plan
When the purpose of a pitch is to nail a deal, the strategy should be to win before making the presentation. Six tactics for locking up an early victory:
1. Not focusing on pitching all of the company's credentials. Instead, emphasize what the company can do for the prospect.
2. Never asking a potential customer information-gathering questions. Instead, gathering data from other sources, and then asking questions that show that one already know the customer.
3. Not keeping the game plan secret until the presentation. Running ideas by an unbiased member of the team. If it gets a good reaction, it can be built upon. If it's a bomb, there’s time to fix it.
4. Knowing weaknesses, and assuming that rivals will share them with a potential customer. Being ready to counter such criticism.
5. Listening and learning. Listening for clues from the prospect that can be used to take a pitch in a new direction. Turning the conversation into collaboration.
6. Finding reasons to stay in touch. Making sure that the pitch meeting ends with a reason to follow up.
It could be argued that public speakers may skillfully manipulate audiences with no apparent regard for truth and there maybe little value for mere rhetoric used by fast-talking speakers. However, there maybe great potential in rhetoric (one person addressing many) and it could be an art that could and should be studied and that good rhetoric may not only be persuasive, but also ethical.
In The Rhetoric, Aristotle detailed information on effective persuasive speaking. He identified ethos, pathos, and logos as three methods a speaker uses to persuade. Ethos refers to a speaker's credibility and his or her character as revealed through the communication, pathos to a speaker's emotional appeals or the emotions felt by the audience, and logos to a speaker's logical appeals. The teachings of Ptah-hotep in pre-modern Egypt and Africa (2500 B.C.) emphasize the importance of a speaker's demeanor and known character.
A rhetorician may identify with the audience and their perception as an important part of public speaking. In fact rhetoric maybe effective only if it stirs up emotions in its audience and wins over hostile audiences. Although these days this may be true only of political speechmaking.
Ethos/The speaker: Rhetoric is a performance art, inseparable from physical persona or body language and charisma, which maybe welcoming and may make people feel comfortable. The voice is a tool used by modulating it, raising it, lowering it, by well-timed pauses, to highlight the importance of relevant points. Similarly placement of hands and also maintaining eye contact are also an important part of the act.
Logos/The message: Actual speech content should be determined by its purpose. Business meetings where both parties have fixed agendas and outcomes they hope to gain should be very focused, as time is of essence. Educational/instructional/informative speeches should be interesting as it could have audiences, which range from attentive to indifferent. All speeches should be factually correct.
Pathos/The Audience: We must first of all understand this, that there are many kinds of people, for some, utility is most important, and the others, credibility. Before the latter kind it is best to exemplify merit, credibility, trustworthiness while before the former, the gain and enjoyment of profit.
There are four main genres of public speech.
1. Demonstrative: observance of social occasions e.g., weddings, funerals.
2. Deliberative: effecting judicial and administrative outcomes e.g., lawsuits, and legislation.
3. Informative: communicating information e.g., educational and training
4. Persuasive: effecting business outcomes e.g., presentations, sales pitch
Demonstrative: Also called panegyric (Greek) and known as the art of praise. This is a ceremonial genre of oratory, especially used for such occasions as funerals. Modern examples of demonstrative orations include inaugural and keynote addresses. Such speeches may be said to (define and) celebrate the values of the community. The genre was often may also be an oratory of display--the "set piece."
Deliberative: The "art of persuading and dissuading," this is the genre of political and judicial debate, but it is also the major genre concerned with the giving of advice in general.
Informative Speaking
Informative speeches generally concentrate on explaining, telling how something works, what something means, or how to do something. A speaker who gives an informative speech usually tries to give his or her audience information without taking sides.
Persuasion: It is impossible to escape persuasive speaking, and persuasion has consequences. Change can occur when persuasion takes place. Persuasion is the process that occurs when a communicator (sender) influences the values, beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of another person (receiver) and motivates the receiver towards certain outcomes.
Example, sales pitch: Everyone, at least some of the time, practices the art of the pitch, pitching ideas and projects or company’s products or services or even pitching themselves. John was a former drummer of a rock band. He now runs InfoVision, a startup software company.
The pitch is a high-stakes pitch, that aims to get greater funding. The venue, an invitation only gathering of the techno-elite, more than 800 top high-tech executives, analysts, institutional investors, VCs, and select members of the media. Companies would be pitching what they hope will be the next generation of grand-slam gadgetry.
John will get his six minutes, but he has only about 30 seconds to make an impact. A breakout performance would depend on preparation, which should be at least a week until demo day, writing and rewriting a dozen scripts, analyzing videotaped performance. The goal is to make it all look effortless.
Rule #1 Know your audience.
War room: The conference room with several laptops, a video camera, and a mega-monitor. For starters, John wants to kick off his pitch with a drum solo, assuming that a 36-second salvo will rouse the crowd.
The plan: John bangs out a quick riff and announces that he had been a professional musician who had played just the drums. He'll then segue into his pitch. His advances in software technology, he's no longer merely a drummer, he's a one-man symphony. The point is this: His $150,000 enterprise-wide software, searches a company's data resources and rapidly fetches and organizes once hard-to-get-at business info, thereby opening unimagined information-gathering realms for corporate decision makers.
But this "creative" opener is a gamble. Misreading the audience is an unforgivable sin. A blitz on the drums might just put off the 800 less-than-playful strangers who may be at the venue. If pitcher’s wants to take a risk, playing the solo at the end of the sell is better. If he bombs at the beginning he may never recover. People will remember him as the guy who played the drums, not as the guy who rocked the world with the first true business-data portal.
Rule #2 Focus on the message.
If there's too much technical jargon, there maybe too many limp sound bites, also the pitch may exceed time limits. If all of it can’t be said in six minutes, it is better to focus on two or three key messages and making them simple and convincing with evidence to back up the message.
Reorganizing messages from top to bottom, using colored markers to draw rectangular boxes called "message containers"
Message containers: The "opening" box represents the drum-playing solo (which John insisted on, despite concerns). Within a "subject" box are the phrases that he'll use to announce the "InfoVision business solution." Three "agenda" boxes contain the "what I'm going to tell you" message. The "body" boxes beneath each agenda item make up the "I'm telling you" part. Then comes the "summary" ( "what I just told you" ) and, finally, the "conclusion" ( "what I want you to do" ).
The pitch should be clear, compelling, and as comprehensive as it can be under time-crunched circumstances. Now the tough part: stage presence.
Rule #3 Know thyself.
This can be known from feedback received from large audiences, that is, what the pitchers body or his voice says. More important, how do others perceive him? According to research conducted by psychologist Albert Mehrabian, 55% of what audiences remember, relates to what they see, 38% relates to the way the information is presented, and just 7% relates to what a speaker actually says.
Seeing a video of a recent performance, John began to understand. He scans the room, instead he should try to make direct eye contact. Good speakers don't address crowds, they talk to individuals. Deliver a complete thought to one person in the audience, then pause, glance at the script, grab the next thought, and share it with a new person in another part of the room. The pitch should play out as a series of one-on-one conversations.
Back to the videotape: The pitcher hands are floundering around his hips, he's also shifting his weight from side to side, which makes him seem unsure of himself. John tries another run-through, this time sitting down and everything about the pitch changes. Once he's freed from worrying about where to put his hands and how he should move, his face relaxes, his eyes brighten, his voice becomes animated, and even his language becomes more vivid. He uses his voice instead, raising it, lowering it, slowing it down, speeding it up and trying more pauses. A well-timed pause lets a point sink in far better than any adjective.
Rule #4 Be nervous on the day of the presentation (that means that the pitch is ready)
Day one of demo, and 20-plus contenders had already presented. The theatrically backlit stage looked like something from a Rolling Stones tour. Easily 100 feet long, the setup included a talk-show-like lounge area for the host and Godzilla-size video screens that loom at each end.
The host introduced the company and the pitcher at 9:15 a.m., and two clocks blinked to life, poised for the six-minute countdown. Drumsticks raised above his kit, John grins and unleashes a cranium-crushing volley. A tape of his performance shows real improvement. His enthusiasm, passion, energy, and genuineness came through.
The audience's response to the pitch isn't harsh, but the feedback is consistent: The drums weren't effective. He didn't establish their relevancy, took an unwarranted leap when he assumed that an IT crowd would appreciate a drawn-out musical analogy. The audience might be listening, or they might be thinking about the strength-to-weight ratio of the drumhead.
The pitcher also lost some contact with the audience by pitching solo. He had to punch the keyboard (to manipulate the software demo) and to woo the crowd at the same time. Most presenters had a colleague play mouse jockey while they focused on their message.
Others in the audience were astounded when the pitcher announced that the company had $10 million in venture capital financing from the VC Fund. Several VCs wondered what that prestigious firm had seen that they hadn't. In retrospect, the funding part of the message, a confirmation of credibility if ever there was one, should have come earlier in the presentation
Presenters must satisfy two criteria to earn the title of Demo Gods. They must show near-contagious levels of enthusiasm, second, their message must be crystal clear. It was better to try to win over individuals, not the entire room, and that made a difference. The pitcher may not have won the crowd, but he pitched a perfect game to someone who counted. When sharing the stage with pitchers from many other companies, doing something memorable helps drive the message.
Action Item: Practice Pitch
In every competitive pitch, there's a winner and a loser. It is recommended to create a war room to help triumph over the enemy. The war room is any place where the pitch team can brainstorm, research prospective clients as well as competitors, strategize, and rehearse. It's a place for creativity and focus.
Sidebar: Pitch Coaches
Taking the time to prepare the pitch is the key to its success. Training workshops specialize in face-to-face pitch tools for winning new business.
Sidebar: Quick Pitch
Planning a pitch for a chance run-in with a potential customer may sound subversive. But the fact is, almost anywhere is better for winning business than the space between the four walls of a corporate boardroom. Some tips.
1. Never opening with "What do you do?" It's a lazy question, and it leads to a dead-end conversation.
2. Listening for clues that tell us how the person looks at the world and helps understand a potential customer's experience and values, and hence customize the pitch.
3. Not carrying on about yourself. Top business developers are succinct, natural, and compelling: Whatever they say about themselves is relevant to the listener.
4. Not being too quick to direct the conversation to business, chatting about a general business topic, perhaps something in the day's news, before making a segue into your agenda.
5. If someone is disinclined to chat, acting accordingly. It's better to show restraint, to exchange business cards, and to leave a good impression.
Sidebar: Pitcher's Game Plan
When the purpose of a pitch is to nail a deal, the strategy should be to win before making the presentation. Six tactics for locking up an early victory:
1. Not focusing on pitching all of the company's credentials. Instead, emphasize what the company can do for the prospect.
2. Never asking a potential customer information-gathering questions. Instead, gathering data from other sources, and then asking questions that show that one already know the customer.
3. Not keeping the game plan secret until the presentation. Running ideas by an unbiased member of the team. If it gets a good reaction, it can be built upon. If it's a bomb, there’s time to fix it.
4. Knowing weaknesses, and assuming that rivals will share them with a potential customer. Being ready to counter such criticism.
5. Listening and learning. Listening for clues from the prospect that can be used to take a pitch in a new direction. Turning the conversation into collaboration.
6. Finding reasons to stay in touch. Making sure that the pitch meeting ends with a reason to follow up.
It could be argued that public speakers may skillfully manipulate audiences with no apparent regard for truth and there maybe little value for mere rhetoric used by fast-talking speakers. However, there maybe great potential in rhetoric (one person addressing many) and it could be an art that could and should be studied and that good rhetoric may not only be persuasive, but also ethical.
