Are you good at the Oral Dance?

Submitted by Mitch Seigel on Mon, 12/12/2011

When I was a kid I became attached to sports by listening to the likes of Vin Scully, Dick Enberg and Chick Hearn broadcast the local major league teams on the radio. This is also how I became attached to the broadcasting industry. My dream-to be the next Vin Scully! The only problem was that I had never spoken to an audience- never mind speaking to thousands listening on the radio!...

So this began my education on oral presentations, largely beginning in 9th grade with speech, through drama in 10th, 11th and 12th grades, and then an education on broadcasting in college, with an emphasis on talent. What that meant was that every time one of the broadcasting students needed someone to be on mike or cameras, I volunteered. Now this may sound frightening to some of you, but how was I to know if I could do it or not, if I didn’t stick my neck out there and try.

Where this led was to an abbreviated career as a play by play announcer, both for my college teams, as well as for a radio station in Utah, in my first job out of college. After that, I can honestly say that my training on oral presentations has been used time and time again. I’ve been in sales my entire career. Part of that time I was a sales manager, and another part of that time I have been asked to speak in front of large audiences. In each case my training has allowed me to accomplish my goals of training a staff, presenting ideas to clients and/or presenting a workshop to an audience.

Oh yea, the dance! No matter how much you practice to do your part right, something always comes up forcing you to go in a different direction when you speak. This is the dance. It’s the ability to improvise on your feet so that the audience doesn’t have a clue that you are doing so. One way to learn how to do this is through practice, over and over again. Another is to make sure you know your topic for the presentation inside and out. If you know your topic you should be able to speak about it without a script because the passion you have will be very evident. If you try to speak about a subject you know little about, quite the opposite may happen.

Have fun with your presentation. Use your nervousness to your advantage and turn it into positive energy that comes through in your presentation. If you’re still unsure about it, contact me now and I would be glad to talk about it!

What are your challenges when it comes to Oral Presentations? I look forward to hearing your comments. Until next time …