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You wrote the speech so you know where it is going but the audience doesn’t. Make sure you let them know when you are moving from one idea to the next so they can keep up. Maybe pause before you start the new part. Maybe step forward. Maybe use a new energy. All these techniques will let the audience to shift gears with you.
You will have all kinds of ideas you may think are brilliant. But their abstraction may get lost on the audience and they won’t know what you mean.
Always chose clarity over cleverness. It’s better if the audience can follow a simple idea than if they get lost on a clever one.
When we speak, we tend to off on tangents and get parenthetical (saying things as though they were in parentheses). If we do, the audience may go on that tangent with us but might not know how to get back. So always make sure if you veer off on a tangent, that you say close enough to the throughline that the audience can stay with you. If they get lost, they may give up on following you and then you’ve lost your chance to influence them.
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charlie@charliekrebs.com
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