The Speaking Formula: Communicate and Present with Confidence

By Dale Rees-Bevan

It is just as important to be able to communicate well as it is to do your job well. Speaking up at meetings, giving presentations, making short speeches: every time you demonstrate your confidence and capacity to communicate, you increase your value in the workplace. The Speaking Formula shows you how to:

•overcome nerves
•structure your ideas
•enhance your presentation content
•keep your audience engaged
•communicate clearly
•deliver with impact AND
•be seen as a leader

Looking at the psychology of speaking and what people do to sabotage their success, The Speaking Formula provides strategies to increase confidence. Chapter by chapter you will learn how to craft presentations of which you can be proud. Dale Rees-Bevan has distilled twenty years of speaking and training experience into this book so that you can cut straight to the step by step methods of ensuring your presentation success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Feb 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781922261144

Dale Rees-Bevan

I have been a speaker and trainer for over twenty years, focusing on showing people how to present effectively. I started out as an English (and French!) teacher, but soon found greater gratification in helping people find their voice. My seminars, workshops and courses are all designed to increase the confidence of participants by equipping them with step by step methods to structure their presentations, improve their delivery and reach a point of enjoying the process of speaking.My aim, in writing The Speaking Formula, is to provide a book that guides readers through the process of improving their confidence and crafting presentations. I wanted to create something that would make nervous speakers feel that their hand was being held through the process, but that would also add value to the experienced speakers who could skip the hand-holding process.The Speaking Formula is a culmination of twenty years of working with CEOs, engineers, architects, GMs, technicians, nurses, doctors, teachers, students, children, lawyers, plumbers, artists, lecturers and entrepreneurs. No matter the profession, people have similar concerns and similar difficulties when it comes to putting together presentations. The Speaking Formula is a resource for all presenters and speakers.

Book preview

The Speaking Formula

Communicate and present with confidence

Dale Rees-Bevan

This is an IndieMosh book

brought to you by MoshPit Publishing

an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd

PO BOX 147

Hazelbrook NSW 2779

https://www.indiemosh.com.au/

Copyright 2019 © Dale Rees-Bevan

All rights reserved

Cartoon images from Mark Tippett

http://www.marktippett.com.au/commissions.html

Diagrams Simmi Mathuru

Photographs by @arb.photographer

(www.letmeshootyou.digital)

Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

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Disclaimer

Although the author has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

WHAT’S IN THIS FOR YOU

Known conventionally as The Foreword

If all my talents and powers were to be taken from me … and I had my choice of keeping but one, I would unhesitatingly ask to be allowed to keep the Power of Speaking, for through it, I would quickly recover the rest.

Daniel Webster

I wrote this book to help you use that wonderful instrument, your voice, to articulate your full potential to the world.

Within the pages lie step-by-step guidelines on ways to overcome nerves, structure ideas, put presentations together. You will also find tools to influence people you’re speaking to and ways to field the curve balls your boss throws to you.

Unlike many books about speaking, this book focuses on more than just public speaking and presentation skills. It also covers situations like participating in meetings, running meetings, handling discussion situations. It’s about recognising that your voice is your advertising banner – your success depends on your ability to articulate what you are capable of.

Speaking well

is about using your voice in any situation to achieve better outcomes.

There are eight main sections:

1. The big adventure – what speaking well could mean for you

2. Overcoming nerves

3. Structuring ideas

4. Developing content

5. Delivery techniques

6. Building rapport

7. Strategies for memorisation

8. Speaking for success – everywhere!

Much of what you read should strike you as common sense. I’d like to throw a challenge out there that whenever you find yourself going ‘Yes, that makes sense,’– stop and consider: ‘When did I last do that?’ Or ‘Do I apply it to all situations?’

Speaking is an art – there is no absolutely right or wrong way. However, some people’s presentations are definitely more interesting and engaging than others. Presumably you are reading this because you would like to be the architect of stimulating presentations.

The good news is that there are techniques you can use that enable you to communicate your message better. There are methods that speakers use to draw their audience in and keep them entertained, despite the potential dryness of the topic. It is my hope that by using some of the tools and ideas I offer here, you will find yourself communicating more effectively.

My primary school reports all stated ‘Dale has to learn to speak and participate in class’. As an incredibly shy child, I had no use for such advice. Strangely enough, I did want to become a teacher and always envisaged myself in front of groups and somehow, through teacher training, drama classes and a long relationship with Toastmasters I have found myself addressing conferences, running seminars, training sessions and competing at the World Championship of Public Speaking in 2017.

For me, the biggest learning point has been that there is no end to the learning. There is no limit to the things you can do, add, change and experiment with to become a better speaker. Wherever you are in your speaking journey, I am very glad to be a part of it and to be able to speed up the learning for you.

Enjoy the fruits of greater communication confidence.

WHAT COULD BE IN IT FOR YOU

Known conventionally as The Introduction

If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it

Mary Engelbrecht

My son had the luxury of doing an elective at school called Urban Residential Design. Not for the first time, I found myself wishing my schooling had been so exciting. But Kieran was not as enthralled by the prospect of building a model of a sustainable apartment block.

As with many of his projects, this one sat untouched for several weeks as he mulled over what to do. As we all know, the best way to handle something we’re not comfortable with is to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Eventually my husband suggested that Kieran consult some architectural software, which enabled him to create a suitable design. This would terrify me, but computers are familiar territory for our 15 year old, so this was a good idea. Once he had a blueprint, some workable dimensions and a plan, the project began, quite literally, to take shape. Kieran suddenly sprang to life. He purchased materials, spent time cutting and measuring and set about building the apartment model.

The execution of the project suddenly became quite easy. Kieran no longer needed to be reminded of his task – in fact, he willingly took it up each afternoon. If we weren’t sure where he was, a good place to look would be out on the deck, where his tools and materials were set up.

It’s the great unknown that tends to cause us to freeze. Without a plan, a strategy, a blueprint, we are lost. Furthermore, it makes us feel the real possibility that whatever we do will be wrong. Once we have our blueprint, then it’s simply a question of doing the work and giving it shape.

From the safety of a framework that we know will work, we can then branch out into adding personalised and creative touches. The presentation structure outlined in this book is a tool for you to use to make you feel safe when you start to create your presentation.

Once you get started, you might find that the work is not as overwhelming as you first thought. You shouldn’t discount the possibility that you might even come to enjoy it.

Chapter 1 – THE BIG ADVENTURE

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

Jack Welch

THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT:

Determining your speaking goals

Speaking: the big picture

Trying confidence on for size

You Don’t Know Where It Will Take You

When you decided to read this book or do the Speaking Formula program, no doubt you were envisaging a moment when you could talk to fifteen or fifty or five hundred and be confident that you would be reaching every single person in the group.

Most of my clients say they ‘just want to be comfortable with speaking.’ (What’s this gumpff about reaching every individual? Or wowing the audience? Merely surviving is a perfectly worthy goal!) And being comfortable is important: have you ever responded positively to a speaker who clearly doesn’t want to give the talk, other than to feel awfully sorry for them?

If comfortable is the next step for you, then that is important and a good step. Nobody wants to be pitied by their audience. When they first come to me, many of my clients say that they just want to learn how to do a presentation without throwing up, they never imagined they’d have the power to actually impress their audience.

But I’d like you to open your mind to the possibility of going for maximum impact: the WOW factor.

Consider the possibility that you could look forward to your presentations, you could get excited about delivering a talk. Think about how that plays out for your audience – people would sense you are happy to be there. This naturally sets up a much more positive dynamic.

Think about the people at work who lead meetings with a sense of positive energy. A client told me about two people he worked with who ran scrum meetings for his team. (A scrum meeting is a daily stand-up meeting designed to keep meetings short and to the point.) One scrum leader spoke as if he was bored with life and had no interest in anything other than drawing the meeting to a close. The other punched the air with his fist and managed to excite the team to achieve seemingly impossible goals. My client was intrigued by how much more the second leader was able to achieve and he seemed to do it almost entirely by tone of voice. The team would leave the meetings buoyed up by his positivity as they set off to conquer all challenges.

In this book we will explore concrete strategies to incorporate into your speaking, which you can see will make a difference to how you come across to others.

And then a whole world will open up.

Speaking and leadership go hand in hand.

You don’t need to hold a leadership position to use leadership skills. As Barry Posner says, ‘Leadership is a behaviour, not a position.’ It is interesting to note though, how good speakers are often regarded as natural leaders – the perception is that their ability to speak well will stand them in good stead with a team or organisation. I would argue, with great enthusiasm, that speaking is one of the leadership behaviours we can demonstrate. This is why good speakers are perceived as leaders.

As a newly graduated teacher ready to change the world, I took a teaching post at a girls’ school. I realised that there was nothing in the curriculum to help the students with their speaking skills. They’d get up and do their oral exam and be given a mark, but nobody ever told them how to do it better. I felt that this smacked more of judgement than education.

Many people from my generation seem to have had a similar experience of being required to give presentations at school but not given useful instruction on exactly how to do so. Students who failed, or almost failed, had no means of learning how to improve. To a large extent this still goes on in schools.

Full of energy and, some might say, the arrogance of youth, I