11.5: Mastering the Art of Delivery

Engage Your Audience From the Start

A poorly delivered presentation can erode your credibility and leave your audience yawning. Even if you have compelling content, audiences are more likely to lose focus because of poor communication and tune out if you are monotone or lack enthusiasm for your topic. An effective delivery will increase your chances of informing, persuading, or inspiring your audience. Once you have structured your message, establish a strong delivery to make your presentation memorable.

What could you DO to develop your speaking skills? Check out 15 Science-Based Public Speaking Tips to Become a Master Speaker by Vanessa Edwards, speaker, author, and mastermind behind the Science of People website.

Figure: 11.5.1: The 5-Step Process: Focus on Delivery

Key Elements of Delivery

Once you have created your content, focus on the following factors to add pizazz to your presentation.

Vocal Variety

Vocal variety involves adjusting your voice to maintain audience interest and emphasize key ideas.

Technique	Description
Articulation	Clear pronunciation of words to ensure understanding.
Rate	The speed at which you speak; adjust to emphasize key points, create dramatic effect, and match the content and audience. In general, speak faster for exciting information, slower for serious. Don't forget to pause!
Volume	Appropriate loudness; ensure the audience can hear you. In general, use a louder voice for crucial details and a softer tone for emotional content or to influence the audience's focus.
Pitch	Variation in tone to avoid monotony and convey emotions. This can be effective when highlighting points, signaling transitions, asking questions, and emphasizing importance.
Emphasis	Highlighting specific words or phrases to draw attention. Use sparingly for impact.
Modulation	Changing pitch and tone to convey different meanings or emotions.
Energy	Injecting enthusiasm to keep the audience engaged.
Elimination of Fillers	Avoiding words like "um," "uh," and "like" to maintain professionalism.

Gestures

Gestures add visual interest and reinforce your verbal message. Hand gestures can be can be used to illustrate points, emphasize words or rhythm, and depict objects or actions. While you don't want to add so many as to be distracting, think about which gestures will complement your message.

• Choose the Right Gestures: Use gestures to emphasize points, illustrate concepts, or convey enthusiasm. For example, "You have three choices" (said as you hold up three fingers).
• Avoid Distracting Gestures: Refrain from fidgeting, excessive pointing, or repetitive motions.

Posture and Movement

Your stance and movements convey confidence and help engage the audience.

• Maintain a Confident Posture: Stand upright with shoulders back to project confidence.
• Use Purposeful Movement: Move deliberately to different areas to engage various audience sections. Show distinctions or natural breaks between your points by using the speaker's triangle. The Speaker's Triangle illustrates how speakers can begin and end in the center of the stage and then move purposefully in a triangle formation to highlight each key point.

Facial Expressions and Eye Contact

Facial expressions and eye contact build rapport and convey sincerity. The guidelines are the same whether you are presenting in-person or online. Keep the connection with your audience.

• Show Appropriate Emotion: Use facial expressions to match the emotion of your message.
• Maintain Eye Contact: Eye contact conveys confidence and helps you hold your audience's attention. Strive to look at different people; hold for three to five seconds. Darting your eyes, looking down, or being tied to your notes, phone, or computer screen make you appear nervous or ill-prepared.

Dress and Appearance

Your appearance should align with the occasion and audience expectations.

• Wear Appropriate Attire: Dress suitably for the event to establish credibility. Figure 2: The Speaker's Triangle
• Be Well-Groomed: How will you appear to your audience? Do you appear clean, fresh, and ready to present? If you just had lunch, do you have spinach in your teeth? Appearance is often the first thing audiences notice, and audience members might judge character and competence based on visual cues.

Props and Visuals

Props can engage the audience and make your message more memorable. However, choose props with care, ensuring they are large enough to be seen and that they add value to your message. Your props should be relevant and simple.

• Relevance: Ensure all props and visuals directly support your message
• Simplicity: Keep visuals clear and uncluttered to avoid overwhelming the audience

When choosing props, consider where you will store them before, during, and after your presentation. Allow for any set-up or take-down time. Think about what COULD go wrong, and prepare props so that they are easy to display and access. For example, if you are demonstrating how your new product works, make sure that you have an extension cord to ensure it DOES work.

Practice with your props. Think about the BEST time to display them, how long to keep them visible to the audience, and anything that could go wrong. Have a back-up plan in case the prop does not work. To see an interesting use of a simple suitcase as a prop, view Susan Cain's TED Talk, the Power of Introverts.

Addressing Common Delivery Challenges

Improving your delivery involves recognizing and addressing common pitfalls:

• Lack of Eye Contact: Practice by delivering your presentation to a friend or recording directly into a camera lens to become more comfortable with maintaining eye contact
• Monotone Voice: Work on varying your pitch and tone to add interest and emphasize key points
• Excessive Filler Words: Pause briefly instead of using fillers; this gives you time to think and the audience time to absorb information

Presenting online has its own challenges, including how to appear confident and keep your audience engaged. In her successful career as a sought-after speaker, Vanessa Van Edwards advisers speakers to position themselves from the waist up so that the audience can gestures.

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Insights from Carmine Gallo's Talk Like TED

In Talk Like TED, Carmine Gallo emphasizes the importance of passion in presentations.

"Science shows that passion is contagious, literally. You cannot inspire others unless you are inspired yourself."

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Additional Resources

For further guidance on enhancing your presentation delivery, check out these best-selling authors:

• Anderson, Chris. TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.
• Duarte, Nancy. Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2010.
• Gallo, Carmine. Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2014.

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Contributions and Attributions

Image Source: Pellaes. A. Unsplash.com, Public speaking - Audience and speaker, April 25, 2020. https://unsplash.com/photos/people-sitting-on-chairs-watching-a-game-6vAjp0pscX0