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Public Speaking Tip: Don’t Speak Off The Cuff!

Filed under: Public Speaking, Sales Presentations, Executive Speech Coaching — Steve Mertz at 1:13 pm on Sunday, July 9, 2006

Last week I was speaking with a potential client who wanted executive speech coaching. He has an important meeting coming up and needs to convey an important shift in corporate culture. He told me: ” I feel I speak pretty well off the cuff.”

Here are some of my top reasons on why you might not want to speak off the cuff when you are delivering a very important public presentation:

1. You will have a tendency to waffle on your opening and not have a killer opening.
2. It’s very easy to forget key points.
3. It’s easy to dilute your message by leaving your key points and speaking completely off topic.
4. You are thinking too much about making your presentation and forget to engage the audience in a meaningful way.
5. By jumping around from point to point without an orderly transition and tie in-your audience becomes confused and then bored!
6. You have a tendency not to anchor key points with memorable stories.
7. You forget the “call to action”
8. You don’t have a strong close for your presentation.

The art of great public speaking is having a fabulous presentation that you have rehearsed until you are blue in the face and having your audience feel that you were speaking “just to me” in a conversational manner!!

Steve Mertz
Public Speaking is an Art!

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3 Comments »

Pingback by Textbook Evaluator » Educators Can Learn from Business People

August 4, 2006 @ 4:26 pm

[…] In this post, Steve warns people not to speak “off the cuff.”  As educators, it’s hard not to end up speaking off the cuff, since we often have so little time to prepare our presentations–and we sometimes give as many as 5 per day–all on different subjects. […]

Pingback by Sales Presentations Training, Public Speaking,Coaching,PowerPoint Tips and Career Training

September 20, 2006 @ 11:50 am

[…] While this information is not new it certainaly is valuable and gives us a timely reminder when giving presentations. It also gives credence to the the fact that speaking off the cuff-puts you at a distinct disadvantage with audiences. Lastly, let’s not forget to chart out our use of humor in our presentations! […]

Pingback by Sales Presentations Training, Public Speaking,Coaching,PowerPoint Tips and Career Training

February 22, 2007 @ 1:20 pm

[…] Many of the CEOs that we coach feel they are more susceptible than ever to a press looking for Dirty Laundry! As a matter of fact, the fastest growing aspect of our business is Executive Speech Coaching-learning to verbal banter with the press! […]

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