Speaking Tips: How to Give Your Message More Impact

Does you message stand out? Do you make it easy for your audience to remember what you say? Does your message make an impact on the mind of your listener?

You need to care about this, because there is so much competition for the mindshare of your audience. There are so many things that come at each of us all day, every day. In a noisy world, if we don’t work hard to help our audience connect with your message, then it will be easy for them to quickly forget it.

And if your audience quickly forgets what you have just said, then how effective has your message been? Not at all effective.

How do we make our message have impact? It’s not complicated, but it does require a little work. These five steps are a great place to start:

1. Know what you want to accomplish. What are your goals? What do you want them to do? Are you asking for something?
2. You have to understand your audience’s perspective. What will be valuable to them? What will be important or unimportant?
3. Outline the key elements of your message. Yes… do an outline.
4. You have to create visuals (if and when you need them) that are easy to absorb and don’t look like a passage out of “War and Peace.” Your slides need to be simple, clear, consistent, and not require a lot of reading.
5. You need to have a toolbox of delivery skills that will allow you to help your audience retain the key messages you have worked so hard to identify.

Do you want your audience to remember what you say? Do you want your message to make an impact? Then you have a little work to do. It’s not complicated. But it will take some work.

Good luck.

—

Does your team:
– Overwhelm the audience with too much detail?
– Make things too complicated?
– Fail to ask for what they want or need?

Does your organization:
– Waste time because of poor internal communication?
– Take too long to make decisions?
– Struggle to clarify and frame discussions?

Do your leaders:
– Exhibit poor executive presence?
– Lean on incomplete communication skills?
– Fail to align the organization?

We transform teams and individuals with repeatable toolsets for persuasive communication. Explore training, coaching, and consulting services from The Latimer Group.