5 steps to better speaking with less effort

Sometimes you have better things to do than public speaking. 

Tell me if this sounds familiar: You’re asked- or told - to do a presentation at work. You want to make a good impression, because the audience for your talk includes people who have the power to advance, or stall, your career. 

So you meticulously draft out a script; you put together a slide deck; you practice, you practice, you practice. You do a run-through with a colleague; they suggest changes; you re-write your script; you practice, you practice you practice, from beginning to end. When the day comes, you still don’t have it memorized, so you use your notes but you’re not happy about it. Then afterwards, you obsess over everything that didn’t go exactly the way you wanted.

And there’s a good chance that you were doing unpaid overtime for all of this, because you other stuff to do and you’re not expected to spend a lot of paid time on this presentation. You’re simply expected to do it, and to do it well.

That’s a recipe for burnout. It’s a recipe for resentment. And it’s not going to help you feel any more positive about public speaking in the long run.

But there is a better way.

First, a caveat: I’m about to share some strategies to give a solid talk, with a reasonable amount of effort, by focusing on priority areas of preparation. This method will not get you to a TED talk-level of performance. TED and TEDx speakers prepare for months. They work with expert coaches. They put a ton of work into the final product that you see on stage. So the expectation that you’ll give that level of performance for Wednesday’s project update meeting, is unrealistic and unfair.

What this method will do, is allow you to feel more in-control when you give presentations. And when you feel in control, you’ll be more motivated to keep going and improving.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Draft an outline

Sketch an outline of the key ideas and information to be presented. If you’re feeling stuck at this stage, download my free cheat sheet to figure out what information you need to provide, and how to roll out that information in a way that’s optimally useful and persuasive to your audience.

Step 2: Say it out loud and make a transcript

This is where we part ways with standard speech-writing practice.

Normally, you would sit down with your outline and write out a script. There are a couple of problems with that approach:

First, if you’re like most people, your writing style is different from your speaking style. So when you read out loud something that you’ve written, it’s obvious that you’re…reading out loud something that you’ve written. It doesn’t sound spontaneous, natural, or engaging.

When you practice it, you might find that you’re tripping over your words a lot and you need some pretty major re-writes in order to make it workable for the spoken word.

Second, the write-it-first approach tends to make you more dependent on your script. Your brain decides that since the written version came first, the written version is superior. So it’s harder to leave your written notes behind. 

Here’s what to do instead: get an app that records and transcribes audio. I use otter.ai (not sponsored), but you can use whatever you want.

Turn on that transcription function. Going through your outline, talk about each item out loud as if you were having a conversation with a colleague or explaining it to a friend.

Step 3: Turn your transcript into a draft

Once the app generates a transcript, you automatically have your first draft. And you didn’t have to write a word - amazing!

It will be rough; It will need a whole lot of editing; but it contains within it the information and ideas that you want to convey, in the style that you would naturally and comfortably express them.

So go through it, and paste the good parts into a new document. You can then arrange these snippets into a loose script for your presentation.

Step 4: Identify the tricky bits

Your recording and transcript will also help you identify which parts of the presentation are more challenging for you. These are the parts where you find yourself stumbling over your words, or rambling, or pausing for long periods.

Compare these with the parts of the presentation that are incredibly easy because you talk about the content so often that you could explain it forwards, backwards, in your sleep, while playing a ukulele. 

You don’t need to spend the same amount of time practicing the easy parts as you spend on the more difficult parts. In other words: you don’t need to do a full run-through every time.

Instead, start by practicing and polishing only the bits that you find more challenging, and end with a few run-throughs of the full presentation in order to make sure that it flows and it fits the time allotted.

Step 5: Just do less

This isn’t so much a step as a suggestion. What if you just simplified?

Let’s talk about slides for a minute: Unless your employer has rigid requirements for how you prepare slide decks, don’t waste time packing them with a bunch of text that will just overwhelm your audience. Keep them simple: key terms, key ideas, some punchy images, and you’re done. Easier for you, and kinder to your audience.

And let’s talk about content: Don’t blast the audience with a bunch of complicated information that they don’t need or want to know. Obviously, you need to give them what’s relevant and useful. But this isn’t high school, where you have to meet a minimum page count.

Presentations that drag on and on are annoying, but most people are not going to be upset if your presentation is more concise than they expected. If they want more detail, they can always ask.

What do you think - would any of these techniques make your life easier? Let me know in the comments, and tell me what you’ll do with the time that you save!

You don’t have to figure things out on your own. A bit of professional help can save you hours of frustration. Check out our group and 1-on-1 training options that will get you on the path to stress-free public speaking!

Cover photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash