When You Give a Speech You Can Sound Intelligent, Powerful, Polished, Articulate, and Confident

An Article on Public Speaking
by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE

When you deliver a speech, have a conversation with your management, or network in your community do you want to sound intelligent, powerful, polished, articulate and confident?

To Sound More Intelligent:
Speak just a bit slower to allow yourself to select your most appropriate vocabulary and to give the impression of thoughtfulness.

To Sound More Powerful:
Use short, simple declarative sentences. You say what you mean and you mean what you say. Cut out any useless connectors, adjectives and adverbs, especially superlatives.

To Sound More Polished:
Never answer a question with a blunt 'yes' or 'no.' Append a short phrase of clarification. For example, "No, I did not see it." "Yes, I know Mary."

To Sound More Articulate:
Make a special effort to pronounce the final sound in a word and use its energy to carry over to the following word. Pay special attention to final 't' and 'ng.'

To Sound More Confident:
Carry your body up. Hold your head as if you had a crown on it. Don't let your arms and legs have side to side motion when you move. Keep your elbows and knees close to the midline of your body.

There is nothing that will help your career more than looking and sounding intelligent and polished. This is true in conversation, company meetings, and speeches.

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At my Patricia Fripp Speaking and Presentation Skills School we work on the three elements of every speech, content structure and delivery.

Would you like to see some examples of an award-winning keynote speaker demonstrate how you can do this? Enjoy this video of Patricia Fripp keynote speaker in action.

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