Saturday 28 July 2012

Is the message or delivery of your speech more important?

Welcome to your presentability blog. 

This is where you'll find useful articles with tips, tools and techniques for even greater presentability to help you increase the impact of all your speaking opportunities. 

You'll also find details about free webinars and have the opportunity to sign up to the free regular presentability newsletter. We give details of public and in-house training and coaching programs from time to time too.  

This is from the inaugural edition of presentability matters. 


Is the message or delivery of a speech more important?
Put yourself in this scenario: you’ve been told, with two days notice, that you are required to do a 20 minute presentation to your firm’s most important clients. The objective is to impart a positive image of your organisation on the audience.

You’re scrambling for ideas, losing appetite and biting your fingernails to the quick. You realise that you won’t have time to finely craft your message and polish your delivery – which one would you favour over the other?

This scenario is not far fetched.The content of your speech and the message behind it is important. You want the audience to know what you stand for and give them insights into your firm.

Delivery also counts for a lot.

If you stumble onto the stage, mumble and have a rigid, white-knuckled hold on the lectern then the audience will be distracted from the message that you want to impart.Of course there is no perfect answer to this predicament. However, for a typical speech assignment, a heavier focus on message is likely to produce a greater payoff.A well-sung song loses impact if the words are meaningless. As long as you can minimise any obvious shortcomings on the delivery side, the message will count for a lot more.

Alan Weiss discusses this tension in his book, Money Talks. As a seasoned speaker, he concurs that audiences will remember a speaker for the value of the message they deliver more so than the magnificence of their sweeping hand gestures!

To become a memorable speaker, it is important to get the foundations right and content comes before delivery – unless, of course, you are being thrust into a very theatrical and impromptu situation.

Our core program gives you the tools you need to craft good messages in your content, as well as delivery tips, practice and other techniques that help you become a memorable speaker.



In-House Programs

We work closely with a range of clients on in-house presentability programs. Typically, they run for as little as half a day or up to two full days, spread over several sessions, and can be delivered in Australia wide. 


Please contact support@presentability.com.au to find out more.




Our remaining public full-day programs this year will be run in Sydney on
  • 8 September; and
  • 13 November
Click here to find out more about the programs and register.


Your presentability matters. 

We trust you found some valuable tips in this edition and we would be more than happy for you to forward it on to friends and colleagues. We’d love to get your feedback so we can make sure we are hitting the mark, and find out if there are any burning questions you have that we can answer in future editions.

Until next time, keep improving your 
presentability.


Phil Preston and Michael Neaylon
On behalf of the presentability team. 

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