Speaking
How to speak so that people want to listen.
The TED talk of this name is the sixth most-viewed of all time. This is the live version, with the parts that wouldn't fit into 10 minutes, and with your audience doing the work rather than watching it.
Most people have never been taught that the voice is an instrument, let alone how to play it.
The talk
Julian starts with the seven habits that cost a speaker their audience, and they're more common in boardrooms than anyone would like. Then the four cornerstones that make speech powerful, which have nothing to do with confidence tricks and everything to do with who you're being while you speak.
The second half is the toolbox: register, timbre, prosody, pace, pitch and volume, demonstrated rather than described, with the audience using their own voices. People who have spoken the same way for forty years hear themselves differently by the end of it.
Throughout, the argument that makes this more than a presentation-skills session: you're always speaking into somebody else's listening, so speaking and listening are two halves of one act. The room leaves able to do both.
What the audience leave with
- The seven habits that lose an audience, and what to do instead
- The four cornerstones of speech that people want to listen to
- The voice as an instrument: register, timbre, prosody, pace, pitch and volume
- A vocal warm-up that takes two minutes and changes the first impression
- How to speak into the listening that's actually in the room
- Why giving the talk as a gift removes most of the nerves
Who it suits
- Sales, business development and client-facing teams
- Leadership groups preparing for high-stakes communication
- Professional bodies and membership conferences
- Any audience that presents, pitches or persuades for a living
What organisers say
“Rated 9.59 out of 10, the highest-rated session of the summit.”
“He received a review score of 8.76 which was the highest of all the speakers... As our highest rated speaker from attendee feedback, I would highly recommend him to others.”