The ability to address an audience is a key skill in business. It’s vital whether you are trying to motivate your SME team during challenging times, announcing financial results or presenting your product or services to potential customers.

Yet government statistics reveal that more than one in six UK businesses with a skills gap say their teams lack expertise in making speeches and presentations.

This failing in speaking proficiency, whether it be among founders, CEOs, managers or junior staff, can reduce a company’s ability to convey and reach its goals, undermine confidence in leadership groups, increase silos, hamper sales and hold back people’s career advancement.

But Dr Alexander McWilliam, founder and managing director of public-speaking training company Improv4Business, says that talking to an audience is something almost any business person can do, with a little guidance. His company has helped employees at numerous SMEs and larger companies, such as ITV, Kenwood and Computacenter.

Here he shares some of his tips and tactics for creating engagement, motivation and success through your speaking.

Find out what your audience wants

Before the presentation, ask your audience what they are hoping to learn from it, such as how a company-wide project will work or exactly what sales results mean for their department.

You can’t of course, cover everything everyone wants to hear, but you can tailor your speech or presentation so that as many people as possible feel it is addressing them and their concerns.

Share your passion

You want the audience to be excited by what you are talking about. This is particularly true is you are an SME leader motivating a small or growing team. Your level of energy will transfer to those listening, so make sure you keep it as high as possible.

Be wary of going into lots of technical or complex information about products and projects, though, particularly if you are from backgrounds such as engineering or finance. Enthusiasm and sense of excitement is vital, but make sure you express it in a clear, widely understandable way.

Keep slides simple

It might be tempting to have presentations that are crammed with detail, perhaps as an aide memoire or something to fall back on, should nerves get the better of you. But you are the presentation. The visual aids, such as PowerPoint, are just that, aids. If you overcomplicate your slides, your audience may focus too much on them or be overwhelmed and switch off.

I know of sales-team members who have significantly changed a presentation after training. This helped them win bids and given their team a huge confidence boost for preparing future presentations.

Control your tempo

Slow your breathing down and your speech will follow, so you can be easily understood. But don’t be afraid to pick up speed a little for exciting news, say.

Hold your ground

It can be very distracting for an audience if a speaker moves half a step forward, then backwards, or to the side. Imagine there is glue on the bottom of your feet. If you really want to move around the stage, do it with purpose. A good rule is to take 3-4 steps, then root yourself to the floor.

Don’t speak how you write

Repeating written English can sound wooden and inauthentic. Improvise your speech to get it into your voice, write it down verbatim, then practise reciting that.

Share with the whole room

Make sure everyone feels included by saying one sentence to someone, then looking at a different person or area of the audience for the next sentence.
One client of mine from an IT company found speaking in front of others overwhelming. The method we used with him can be applied here. I stood close to them and had them present to me as if it was a casual conversation. Then as they were speaking, I slowly backed away as they became more confident. This was repeated until I was a long way away and they were able to address the whole room.

Be precise

Most presentations can be cut down by 20% and some by as much as half. Don’t waste your audience’s time with irrelevant information or waffling. It annoys them and drains their focus and energy.

When rehearsing your speech, challenge yourself saying “Is this section important for the audience to know or do I just want to say it?” If it’s the latter, cut it. If it’s the former, challenge it again. More often than not, it’s probably not needed.

Embrace silences

Don’t be afraid of pausing when you speak to let the audience take in your message. It also increases your presence. Avoid using “ums” and “errs” to fill the gaps.

Pitch it right

Your pitch plays a critical role in effective presentation.

One common habit is unintentionally raising the pitch on the final word of a sentence. If it’s not supposed to be a question, it can suggest uncertainty and undermine the speaker’s credibility.  Aim to finish sentences with a steady, grounded tone to convey confidence and authority.

An aviation-company client had a very monotone voice and was boring audiences. I got them to practice singing their presentation, which allowed their voice to use the full range of its pitch. We then asked them to say the speech again and their voice was much more varied, because they had allowed themselves to play and experiment with their vocal intonation.

You can do this singing practice in the shower or the car, where no-one else can hear you.

Don’t overthink what to do with your arms and hands

When you last spoke to friends and family, you probably didn’t worry about moving your arms and hands too much or too little. Your movement was automatic. Try to have that mindset.

Jokes rarely work

They can even alienate an audience. However, it’s good to have amusing anecdotes to hand, if relevant to what you are talking about, particularly if the tech goes down.

Get personal training

The tips above should prove very useful for improving your speaking. But, if possible, arranging group or bespoke training for SME leaders and teams can be invaluable. It can cover the likes of personalised advice for coping with anxiety, being taught how to speak under pressure, and getting direct feedback on your habits and areas for improvement.

Dr Alexander McWilliam, founder and managing director of public-speaking training consultancy Improv4Business