There is something I have noticed with a number of company clients when doing online presentations.
I have seen presenters often saying their name and title, product or service, or other job related lingo in an unclear way.
What do I mean by “unclear”?
“Unclear” here means usually pronouncing them too fast.
And why does it matter?
If you say a thing so fast that it becomes unclear, you make it sound like it’s something of little importance.
Or that you don’t care much.
Or like you are not too happy working in that job position.
Or the product or service is not that great after all.
It’s all about a subtle perception the listener’s subconscious mind picks up.
Now, I totally understand why we tend to do this. During a workday we say the same product names, processes and use other professional jargon so many times that we easily forget that a presentation is a different scenario.
A similar thing happened to a client of mine last month who had to prepare a first time presentation to a potential customer.
He was saying various elements of the service related jargon too fast, lacking clarity in pronunciation.
In kind of a “you know this well”, “you know what I mean” style.
When, in reality, these were essential parts of the presentation, yet they sounded simply like “something”, instead of THE THING.
1-Minute Tip ⏳
In an online slide presentation, our audience are still listeners in the first place, not viewers.
So, we need to make sure (among a number of other things that I want to talk about some other day) that we say
- our name clearly
- our title clearly
- job related lingo (acronyms etc) clearly
No matter if these appear on a slide. Our audience is still listening, and they deserve clarity both with the visual and the audible information we give them.
Paying attention to pronunciation clarity will help our presentation shine, and it can go a long way in how we come through as speakers to our customers.
Are you a busy business professional who struggles with building speaking confidence and fluency in English and needs help to advance faster?
✍️ DM me on LinkedIn and I’ll get back in 48 hours, so that we can discuss what you need to work on exactly to remove the roadblocks that keep you from advancing your business in English.
As always, thanks for being my reader!
Talk to you next time.
Gábor 🙂
Connect | Gábor Légrádi | MA, RSA/CTEFLA