“Um, Good morning everyone. I… uh… well, I’m really glad to be here and um… um… really excited to share um, our thoughts on, um, well it’s not just our thoughts really, it’s really um, our vision, um…well, um… let’s get started.”  Your speaker for the day begins like this and you’re in the audience. How excited are you to hear the rest of the presentation? How confident are you in this so-called vision? I’m guessing the “yawns” are starting to creep in!

It’s easy for us all to sit in the audience pointing fingers or offering guidance using that horrible coaching word “should,” but we’ve probably all found ourselves in that same position as the speaker at some point in our career. I know I have and it wasn’t fun. Speaking and presenting can be tough.

It Never Gets Any Easier

While this is the truth and it can sound like bad news, it’s not. The fact is that with proper focused attention, you get stronger. That should not only be comforting, it should be motivating! The task never changes. It never gets any easier. It is what is is and it always will be. But what does change is you! You become more skilled, more experienced, and more practiced. You get stronger.

“ It never gets easier, but you get stronger!

4 Ways to Eliminate the Filler Words

You’ve heard this before, instead of saying “um” you need to be silent. Just don’t say anything! Just replace the filler words with a pause instead. You don’t need me to tell you that and you certainly don’t need to waste your time reading a blog post if that’s all it gives you for controlling filler words.

Here’s what I’ll give you next. These are the four steps for eliminating the filler words.

1. Awareness

Let’s face it, if you don’t know you’re doing something how can you ever expect to make a decision to change? In our workshops we video record each student as they address the audience. “I said that many ‘ums’? There is no way!” That’s when we can say, roll the tape! I’m guilty of the same thing. Even after two decades of public speaking, I still catch myself using fillers I let creep back in. Audio or video record yourself rehearsing sometime and make yourself aware!

2. Get Comfortable with Silence

If you’re not comfortable using a powerful tool, you won’t use it. The first time I ever used a saws-all I had a friend show me exactly how to hold it and apply the appropriate pressure to cut through the wall. It’s a scary tool if you’ve never used one. Silence is just as powerful for the speaker. Practice using silence in your next presentation by building in a longer pause at some point. After a thought-provoking question would be ideal.

3. Slow Down

I know this is easier said than done, but that doesn’t give you permission not to try. Here’s something magical that happens when you slow down. If you could slow your pace down to one word every second you wouldn’t say any filler words… ZERO! If you slow down just a little bit from your normal public speaking pace, the vast majority will also disappear.

4. Read Out Loud

Do this every day for about 5 minutes. When you read out loud your ears get the  benefit of hearing your own voice speak in a semi-formal environment (you’re on a script so it feels more formal than just talking to other people in conversation.) You don’t say “um” when you’re reading. When your ears get tuned to hearing you speak out loud without saying “um” they become hypersensitive and aware of the nasty filler words. Your brain naturally begins to avoid them!

I’d love to say you can follow these 4 steps once and every “um” will be magically eliminated, but I’m living proof, it doesn’t always happen that way. It’s more of a constant awareness, and remember… while it doesn’t get easier, you get stronger. Never stop trying.

“ Your words matter. Your words change lives. —RUSS PETERSON JR.

Your future audiences have too much riding on your messages. Do it for their benefit. Your words matter. Your words change lives.

Time to go get stronger…
Russ

I’ve heard people say that our keen visual perception dates back to our early ancestors’ need for survival. “What was that movement I saw out of the corner of my eye? Was it a saber-toothed tiger?” Whether it was used for survival eons ago or not, we can all agree, we still use it today. Look at professional athletes who have developed their eyesight to the point of seeing an object and reacting to it in fractions of a second! For example, a professional baseball player has approximately 4 tenths (.40) of a second to react to a fast ball. Our vision is a certainly a blessing but it’s ignored by many when they speak in public.

When we present and speak to any audience, we can use the power of visual difference to put a spotlight on the areas we want to showcase.  Breaking a pattern and doing something different will lead your audience quickly to a discovery.

Hedwig Von Restorff was a German psychologist who coined a theory commonly referred to as the “isolation effect.” She found that when subjects were presented with a list of items and one was called out in a different way (color, location, size, etc.), the recall of that one item was dramatically increased.

4 ways you can visually be different when presenting

While each of the suggestions below could apply to a PowerPoint slide you create, get creative and think about how you could apply it to any other part of your message delivery.

1.  Change the location

This can apply to items on a slide when everything is in a straight line except for one item, it will draw their attention. When you are speaking at a conference and every other speaker has used the lectern on the stage, step away from it and use the entire stage. Even better, step off the stage for a portion of your delivery and walk out into the audience! If you always have your team meetings in a conference room, move it to the break room area just one time to change the visual stimuli.

2.  Change the size

The first time I saw John C. Maxwell speak, we were handed small booklets about 1/4 the size of a piece of paper with information and for our notes. For some reason, the size itself caused me to want to take notes, and then after the presentation I kept the small booklet like a souvenir! When using slides, if you change the size of any picture or diagram to make it stand out from the rest, the audience moves quickly to the discovery you want them to make.

3.  Change the color

Colors have an effect on us when we view them. Without getting into the psychology of colors, we can simply use different colors to create a spotlight. If one item on a slide is a different color, it will get our attention. For example, this is used quite effectively when a speaker reviews one item at a time and all but one item is grayed out on the slide. As the speaker moves from one item to the next, each item changes to full color. Then when the speaker moves on, the item goes back to gray.

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam, is a great book on how to use simple drawings to make your point faster. What I found interesting is that Dan illustrated his entire book in two colors, black and red.  The red is used to draw your focus on each page. He’s practicing what he preaches!

4.  Change the shape

There is also a psychology of shapes used in marketing and visual design, but let’s stay practical here. Any time we project a shape that is different from everything else shown, it creates a spotlight. These shapes could be in photos, drawings or computer animations. Nancy Duarte built her company on helping people tell their story in a more visually appealing way. She also created a Diagrammer tool for using differences in shapes to focus your audience.

“ The audience does not need to tune themselves to you—you need to tune your message to them. —NANCY DUARTE

One of my dear friends and a fantastic communications coach also performs improv. When I first met Cynthia Oelkers she taught me something about pattern breaking to get the audience’s attention. She was teaching us how to break patterns for humor. She taught me how to write a joke. A common template for a joke is to offer three items with the third item being an obvious break in the pattern. Do you want an example?

To help prevent accidents or loss due to fire at the office we will… have quarterly fire drills, test all smoke detectors annually, and not allow roasting marshmallows at your desk anymore.

Whether you’re constructing jokes or speaking at the next annual sales conference, remember that when you need to direct the audience’s attention, think about how you can visually create something that is different. If everything appears the same it becomes more difficult to discern what is important and what is not. Now you’re making your audience work to keep up with you! Make it easy on your audience to follow you or they will quit! (i.e. take out their smart phones!)

What have you seen others do visually to focus audience attention?

Still working on it,
Russ

WEEK ONE:  One thing you can do this year to improve your influence – Leverage “Different”
LAST WEEK: Part 1 of 3: How to Leverage the Power of Different – Place Bookends on your Presentation
THIS WEEK:  Part 2 of 3: How to Leverage the Power of Different – Visual Attention
NEXT WEEK: Part 3 of 3: How to Leverage the Power of Different -Stories vs. Data

Corporate Ovations: Your Roadmap to More Effective Presentations on Amazon.

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Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.