Chapter 15:

Speaking with
Confidence
Business Communication
Faciliator: Tien Nguyen
If all my talents and powers
were taken from me with one
exception, I would choose to
keep the Power of Speaking,
for through it, I would quickly
recover all the rest
- Daniel Webster
Power of Speaking
 To succeed in the workplace, you need to
become a decent public speaker

Creative
Finance

Marketing

Sales

Techonology
Model of the
Speechmaking Process
Things to Remember
before you talk
 Rule of thumb: Observe and learn
from people who did it well, and
avoid doing it as the people who did
not do it well.
 People forget what you say, and they
forget what you do. But they never
forget what you make them feel
 Quantity doesn’t matter quality is
what matters
Lê Duy Loan –
Texas Instruments
 Before you give a talk
• Identify your TOPIC.
 Consider: audience, occasion, and yourself
 Is it within your expertise?
 Think about what the audience will
remember after hearing your talk
 Make your talk as a story. Slides should be
linked together
 Whatever you do, don’t just read your
slides!
• How many minutes do you have?
 TIME MANAGEMENT
 Before you give a talk
• Identify your PURPOSE
 The purpose is not:
• To impress your audience with your brainpower
• To tell them all you know about your topic
• To present all the technical details
 but is:
• To give your audience an intuitive feel for your idea
• To make them foam at the mouth with eagerness to
listen to you till the end
• To engage, excite, provoke them
For of the three elements in
speechmaking - speaker,
subject, and person
addressed - it is the last
one, the hearer, that
determines the speech’s
end and object. ~Aristotle

Copyright © 2013, 2010, 2007, 2005

Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights
Before you give a talk
• Know your Audience
 Gather information about your audience
 Analyze the information you’ve gathered
 Ethically adapt to your audience

• Remember:
 No need of providing background if you talk
to people who work in the same field, but it is
needed for other people
 The most important is to emphasize
what you have done and why they should
care
Your Audience
The audience you would like
• Have read all your earlier papers
• Thoroughly understand all the relevant
theory you are about to present
• Are excited to hear about the latest
developments in your work
• Are fresh, alert, and ready for action
Your Audience
The audience you get
• Have never heard of you
• Have heard a bit of what you are saying, but
wish they hadn’t
• Have just had lunch and are ready for a doze
Your Audience
• You have 2 minutes to engage your
audience before they start to doze
Why should I tune into this talk?
What is the problem?
Why is it an interesting problem?

Facilitator: Khoa Nguyen

Before you give a talk
• What equipments are available?
 Prepare a back-up plan
• How to dress?
• Have Supporting Material ready.
 Be prepared with more
information and visuals if
needed.
• Rehearse, but not TOO MUCH
 Voice
 Movement
 Gesture
 Write everything down? Then try
to memorize?
Before you give a speech
• Analyze the content
 Could audience remember something after
your presentation?
 What questions could be raised?
 S – W analysis
 Reliability and validity
• Watch for the way you use language
 No slang
 Easy to understand?

• Enjoy it!!!
What your Talk is for…

Burger
Your Paper

Burger
Your Talk Advertisement

Facilitator: Khoa
Nguyen
The average man thinks about
what he has said; the above
average man thinks about
what he is going to say.
~Anonymous
Part I: Introduction
 Say some good words
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your kind introduction.
Thank you the organizing committee for giving me an
opportunity to come to this BEAUTIFUL CITY and
present my work concerning ____________ “
 Capture attention by opening with a
promise, story, startling fact, question,
quotation, relevant problem, or self-effacing
story.
 Establish your credibility by identifying your
position, expertise, knowledge, or
qualifications.
 Introduce your topic.
 Preview the main points.
Part II: Body
 Develop two to four main points.
Streamline your topic and
summarize its principal parts.
 Arrange the points logically:
chronologically, from most important
to least important, by comparison
and contrast, or by some other
strategy.
Your Key Idea
If the audience remembers only one thing from
your talk, what should it be?
• You must identify a key idea. “What I did this
summer” is No Good.
• Be specific. Don’t leave your audience to figure
it out for themselves.
• Be absolutely specific. Say “If you remember
nothing else, remember this.”
• Organize your talk around this specific goal.
• Go straight to the point.
Be Absolutely Specific
Please Use EXAMPLES
• To motivate the work
• To convey the basic intuition
• To illustrate The Idea in action
• To show extreme cases
• To highlight shortcomings
Please Prepare transitions
• Use “bridge” statements between major
parts (I’ve just discussed three reasons
for X; now I want to move to Y).
• Use verbal signposts (however, for
example, etc.).
Part III: Conclusion
 Review your main points.
 Provide a final focus. Tell your listeners how
they can use this information, why you have
spoken, or what you want them to do.
 Plan a graceful exit.
 Thanks people who have been helping you.
Some Final
Tips
Don’t be too technical
 Be enthusiastic
• Enthusiasm
 If you do not seem excited by
your idea, why should the
audience be?
 It wakes them up
 Enthusiasm makes people
dramatically more receptive
 It gets you loosened up,
breathing, moving around
Pre-talk symptom is
more than okay
• Inability to breathe
• Inability to stand up (legs give way)
• Inability to operate brain
Being seen – being heard

• Point at the screen, not at the overhead

projector
• Speak to someone at the back of the
room, even if you have a microphone on
• Make eye contact
• Watch audience for questions
Handling questions
• Questions are not a problem

• Questions are a golden – golden -

golden opportunity to connect with your
audience
• Encourage questions during your talk: pause
briefly now and then, ask for questions
• Help the audience understand the question
• Be prepared to truncate your talk if you run out of
time.
• Better to connect, and not to present all your
material
 Handling questions
• Questions during the talk:
 If your presentation will answer the question later,
say so and move on
 If your presentation won’t answer the question,
either:
• Give a brief answer
• Defer the question to the end of the talk

• Make sure you understand the question

before answering it
 Ask for clarification if you need it
 Restate the question, and ask whether you’ve
gotten it right

• Have backup slides for questions you can

anticipate (but don’t have time for in the main
presentation)
Handling questions
• Don’t say “it is a very good question”

• "MY VIEW is that .... MY VIEW may not

be consistent with yours, but it is
consistent with evidence"

• “we agree to disagree on this point,

thank you”
9 Techniques for Gaining and
Keeping Audience Attention
1. A promise
By the end of this presentation, you will be able to
....

2. Drama
Tell a moving story; describe a serious problem.

3. Eye contact
Command attention at the beginning by making
eye contact with as many people as possible.
9 Techniques for Gaining and
Keeping Audience Attention

4. Movement
Leave the lectern area. Move toward the audience.

5. Questions
Ask for a show of hands. Use rhetorical questions.

6. Demonstrations
Include a member of the audience.
9 Techniques for Gaining and
Keeping Audience Attention
7. Samples/gimmicks
Award prizes to volunteer participants; pass out
samples.

8. Visuals
Use a variety of visuals.

9. Self-interest
Audience wants to know “What’s in it for me?”
Please don’t apologize!!!
• “I didn’t have time to prepare this talk
properly”
• “My computer broke down, so I don’t have
the results I expected”
• “I don’t have time to tell you about this”
• “I don’t feel qualified to address this
audience”
FINISH ON TIME

• Audiences get restive and

essentially stop listening
when your time is up.
• Continuing is very counter
productive
• Do not say “would you like
me to go on?” (it’s hard to
say “no thanks”)
THE END
Facilitator: Khoa Nguyen
Sources

Facilitator: Khoa
Nguyen
Sources

Facilitator: Khoa
Nguyen
Sources

Facilitator: Khoa
Nguyen