How eloquent are you in your speech ? In your presentations ? Interviews ? Client and customer meetings ?
What is your conversion rate ? Not that kind of conversions that we work with in tech-although that matters also- but conveying your message across. Do you capture your audience attention ? It doesn’t matter if they agree or disagree with your message if they are engaged.
Speaking skills are essential and unfortunately, poorly developed on Wall Street. I think a lot of people working in finance should take an acting class. Become a world class act. Like Lady Gaga (Lady Maga ?) here. Be the center of attention. It helps if you trained with Mark Burnett.
Image: Gagadaily
To become an eloquent communicator, one should:
- Be an very good listener and reader. I have a vocabulary of 100,000 words which is above average, certainly in finance
- Utilize metaphors, eulogies.
- There are so many things at work: register, cadence, timber and so forth.
- Speaking slowly and deep generally works best.
- Pause before articulating the message.
- When words come alive, that’s eloquence.
- Use the words that match your audience’s vocabulary. Use of powerful verbs convert action. Believe me !
[Lady Gaga] - Speak with authority. You have been asked there to speak, not your audience.
- Any speech should finish with a call to action.
- Up your persuasion skills.
Mark Bowden talks about the unconscious (brain-stem) choice audiences make on the body language of presenters:
- Friend or foe ? First unconscious judgement. Also there’s a 3rd category: indifferent, which is the default setting
- Is he like me ? My tribe ?…That the second unconscious judgement.
- A smile, the ‘universal signal’, must build for about 3 seconds, and it must sustain for 3 seconds.
- Maintains eye contact with your audience.
- Gestures at the belly level are interpreted as goodwill and honesty. At the chest level, excitement.
- Hand gestures down and finger pointing are a telltale of berated unfriendly delivery, aka “signaling predators”.