What Quality Makes a Great Speaker? (the answer may surprise you!)

 

“What quality makes a GREAT speaker?”

I ask this question in many of my corporate training programs, and my audience usually provides a variety of interesting responses — including ONE particular quality that is brought up each and every time.

They’re not wrong. But they’re not 100% right either.

There’s one very necessary question that we need to get clear on first– similar to the one above, but with one key difference.

That difference will:

✅ Allow us to elevate a presentation from informative…to transformative.

✅ Change how we approach the presentation and position it for success, rather than focusing just how we deliver it.

✅ Help us identify what it takes to be a great speaker…and what it takes to be a truly SUCCESSFUL one.

What quality do YOU think makes a great speaker? And how might that change if you ask this clarifying question first?

Feel free to share your insights in the comments!

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Video Transcript: 

– What quality makes a great speaker?

The most popular answer is not necessarily the right one.

Let’s talk about it here.

What quality makes a great speaker? I ask this question across the board to all of my training groups.

Every time I’m giving a presentation or a training on how to be a better communicator, and across the board, these are the most popular answers:

That they should be confident, they have charisma, they are engaging, they are entertaining, ability to motivate, empathetic.

And these are all great answers, and they’re all right.

But the one answer that comes up most often, the most popular answer, is always CONFIDENCE.

That this is the most effective and best quality a speaker could have is to be confident.

I would tell you that we are actually asking the wrong question, and the question should be

“What makes a successful presenter?”

And for that, the true mark of success in a presentation is that if the presenter gets their point across

to the audience, and if the audience feels that this message was relevant, meaningful, and impactful to them. That’s how we really gauge success of a presentation. Because in fact, the audience doesn’t care if you’re nervous or not. What they care about is getting value from your content.

So really what I’d like to say is yes, confidence is important, but it’s not necessarily confidence in yourself and the desire to get away from the nerves.

But it should be confidence in your message, that your message was built for this audience.

It is the right message for the right audience, and confident that you have put in the work to create an impactful, valuable experience for your audience, whether it’s an audience of one or an audience of many, whether you are in a boardroom speaking up or whether you are in a large conference.

So what quality makes a great presenter?

Yes, it could be confidence, but confidence in the message and confidence that you are delivering value to your audience.

I’m Suzannah Baum. If you’d like to speak more about how we could build your confidence in so many different ways, let’s get in touch.