The Aussie Speaking Guy

Let’s Talk about ‘Fluent Delivery’

by Dale Mercer
As I’ve said before, It was voice coach Roger Love, that said all speaking is public speaking. What did he mean by that? What he meant was, whether you are taking to one person or one hundred persons, you have a responsibility to your listener to convey the right message as well as how you deliver that message. And I couldn’t agree more.

You see, if a person’s speech in their everyday life is jerky, rough or lazy and just not a good all round communicator, then he or she is hardly going to create a presentation that is going to get a grand standing ovation. Now, I’m certainly not saying that fluency has to be absolutely perfect with no stumbling whatsoever, because I’m certainly not perfect, but you want to try some exercises that will minimise the faltering associated with fluency.

I’ll give you an example of this. Recently, I was listening to a colleague of mine give a presentation that went for only about 15mins. You can tell that he heart was really in it, he so much wanted to deliver the goods. However his deliver was jerky and jumpy, it wasn’t fluent and smooth. He’d use mannerisms such as ‘and uh’ and others non-essential fillers. As a result, the minds of his listeners began to wander and what he said started to lack persuasiveness.

This colleague is also a close friend and he has the reputation on joining his words together when talks and we joke with him about it from time to time. When we walks into a room, he’ll greet everyone by saying something like, “Hows-zit-goin’’?”

Now in case you didn’t understand what I just said, he’s asking “How are you going?” But he would say, “Hows-zit-goin’’?” slurring it all together rather than separating the words.

So, on stage he wasn’t as slurring but he didn’t have the fluency that he would have liked to have had. And he asked me for some tips how he can improve his presentations and particularly his delivery and fluency and I told him the thought from before… “The all speaking is public speaking…whether you are talking to one person or one hundred it’s all the same”

So, if you want to improve in fluency, or any other speech characteristic for that matter, the best time to practice is in your everyday life. Whenever you come into contact with people whether it be a sales call or even the people you chat with in your office at work, say to yourself that when you next speak to them, about whatever…(could be your cat or your dog or your family, or hobby…whatever) you are going to do it without regressing and with fluency.

Practice it and see how you go. Then try it with other speech qualities such as modulation, visual contact, gestures. And the best thing is they don’t even need to know that you are practicing on them. You can even try it when you are on the phone at work or at home.
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Let’s briefly discuss some factors that may contribute to a lack of fluency and see if you need to give these areas some consideration.

1.    Lack of preparation can cause a lack of fluency.
2.    Failure to organize your material in a logical way.
3.    A limited vocabulary may inhibit a speaker because they find themselves groping for the right words to use.
4.    Pausing in the wrong places may inhibit fluency.

So throughout Step Up and Speak you’ll discover way on how to do these things that will help you develop fluency.

For now here some tips on how you can improve in the area of fluency.

1. Practise reading aloud for 5-10mins a day and circle the words that you don’t know and look them up.

With the age of entertainment, we don’t read as much as we used to, so our reading may be poor. But by reading aloud it can help your fluency.

2. As you learn new words, do your best to use them in your everyday speech with people you come into contact with. (You’ll sound so intelligent too)
3. When talking to people in everyday life, practise the art of thinking first before speaking, instead of thinking as you go.

As you practise by using these tips, you’ll also develop other speech qualities as a result that will make you more charismatic, compelling and interesting.