Slow Down, You’reTalkingTooFast!

I recently trained a brilliant PR exec who was right on message but noticed that clients he was pitching felt uneasy during his presentations. When someone told him that his delivery didn’t engender trust, he started to lose confidence and he called me in for some fine-tuning. I quickly understood that his problem wasn’t what he was saying, but how he was saying it: He spoke so quickly that potential clients thought his answers were canned. Not only was he losing credibility, but he was also losing business.

Obviously, using our voices strategically is key to effective communication. But just telling someone to “slow down” doesn’t work. Most clients will start out at a modulated pace, but within a few seconds are speed talking again. The trick is to equip them with strategies to help them modulate their pace and enable them to deploy these techniques at will.

I’ve noticed that many people when giving a speech also rush through it. They don’t pause and accentuate keywords; they fail to really draw their audience in. So I’ve developed an easy, effective three-point strategy to help people check their tempo and punctuate it for maximum impact. Give it a go.

Breathing is one form of verbal punctuation that really helps you slow the flow of words. It also can deepen your voice, which has the extra benefit of making it sound more pleasant. I use the “belly breath,” which any practitioner of yoga will recognize. It’s easy to learn and integrate into your repertoire.

• Stand and place your hand on your navel.
• Exhale, extending your stomach for five counts.
• Inhale.
• Now say a simple word, like ‘Ha’ or ‘Om’ as you exhale for five counts.
• Next, shrug your shoulders, roll your neck, say the word and exhale all together.

Practice this for a few minutes each morning and soon you’ll be able to integrate it into your public speaking.

The next time you are in a meeting, try taking a breath before answering a question. It may seem strange at first, but watch people react.

I guarantee more eyes will be on you as they await the wisdom about to spill from your lips.

You’ll come across as less aggressive and it will make you a better listener if you actually use the few seconds to think about what you’re going to say.

Hint: Use a word like “Sure” to acknowledge a question. It will also let the questioner know that you’ve heard him or her and are pondering a thoughtful, unrehearsed response (even if you’ve used it dozens of times before).

This is a great way to add inflection to sentences.

Take a sentence, any sentence. Underscore a few keywords in the sentence (descriptive words or adjectives tend to work best), and read the sentence out loud, being sure to raise the volume on or exaggerating those highlighted words.

Notice how it changes the impact of your delivery.

Now practice reading a paragraph with highlighted words in front of someone and watch his or her reaction.