Episode 18: Real Talking Tips – Add Tempo Changes and Vary Your Sentence Structure

Listeners Need Time to Process What You’re Saying. Words can be meaningless or powerful depending on how the message is presented. Hi, I’m Elaine Clark with Real Talking Tips offering practical advice on how to effectively get your message across and speak like a pro.
Communication is a Powerful Tool if you’re in sales, making a presentation, hosting a podcast, being interviewed, recording a voiceover script, or talking to friends. You can always find ways to improve the way you speak, connect with your audience, and sound real and believable.

There are three sections format and structure of the message: Set-Up, Body, and Resolve.

• SET-UP – establishes the problem.
• BODY – acknowledges the problem and offers solutions.
• RESOLVE – summaries the benefits and suggests that the audience take action. That action can be to go into a store, look at a website, purchase or sell something, tell a friend, explore other options, calm down, travel, accept changes, or a whole array of other choices.

The Power of Silence! Silences are necessary for the audience to absorb and process what was just said. Those brief silences are necessary in order to change the breath and shift emotions during the transitions between each of the three speaking segments: Set-Up, Body, and Resolve. When the emotional shift of silence occurs, the body has a chance to connect with the message on a deeper level

The Format and Structure of Transitions provide an Arc of the Story.
Watch the video, practice the physicality and speaking tips, and visit the website: elaineclarkvo.com/podcast to read more about each speech communication topic.
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Listeners Need Time to Process What You’re Saying.
Words. We love them and hate them. Words can be meaningless or powerful depending on how the message is presented. Hi, I’m Elaine Clark with Real Talking Tips offering practical advice on how to effectively get your message across and speak like a pro.

I’ve coached thousands of business professionals, news and sports casters, influencers, podcasters, and voice actors over the past 40 years. While the content and style of each of their messages vary, the techniques remain the same. Communication is a Powerful Tool if you’re in sales, making a presentation, hosting a podcast, being interviewed, recording a voiceover script, or talking to friends. You can always find ways to improve the way you speak, connect with your audience, and sound real and believable.

Message Format and Structure

Let’s start with the format and structure of the message. There are three sections: Set-Up, Body, and Resolve.

• SET-UP – establishes the problem.
• BODY – acknowledges the problem and offers solutions.
• RESOLVE – summaries the benefits and suggests that the audience take action. That action can be to go into a store, look at a website, purchase or sell something, tell a friend, explore other options, calm down, travel, accept changes, or a whole array of other choices.

THE POWER OF SILENCE

Silence is golden… right? But people are afraid of the sound of silence in those short speech breaks. Yet, silences are necessary for the audience to absorb and process what was just said. Silences don’t mean that the speaker take a time-out and disengages from the audience. Quite the contrary! Those brief silences are necessary in order to change the airflow and shift emotions during the transitions between each of the three speaking segments: Set-Up, Body, and Resolve. When the emotional shift of silence occurs, the body has a chance to connect with the message on a deeper level.

Practice Tip:

1. Hold your hands up and tighten them into fists. The tension in the fists represents the problem in the Set-Up.
2. Relax the fists and open the hands. This opening up and release is what happens in the Body of the message as the problem is knocked down and tension is released.
3. To resolve the problem and connect with the audience so they take action, flip the hands over so the palms face up. Gesture out to the audience if you want them to go out. If you want them to come in, gesture towards the body.

Now say the three message section descriptions with the corresponding hand placement and movement:

• SET-UP (hands in fists)
• BODY (open hands)
• RESOLVE (hands flip upward and gesture either out or in)

If you did it properly, there would have been a little bit of silence between those words as the air and emotion shifted to match the tension, shift to relaxation, and positive movement in or out. This vertical message transition is called: THE ARC OF THE STORY.

Format and Structure Transitions = The Arc of the Story.

This Real Talking Tips podcast series is that the foundation of my business presentation and voiceover coaching. The use of specific physical movements, gestures, and breathing can open up and access the speaker’s emotions, history, and authority so their point of view and personality is shared with the audience. Logical thought, while necessary, usually takes care of itself with minor clarity, item order placement adjustments, and editing. I guess that’s why I love Mark Twain’s quote: “I apologize for such a long letter – I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

While some speakers and politicians effectively use the fist and open hand presentation approach with great success, it doesn’t always match every message style. So here’s a simpler and less dramatic way to achieve the same emotion-filled-silence transitions between the Set-Up and Body… and the Body and Resolve.

Angle one shoulder forward on the Set-Up, move that shoulder back and squared off with the other shoulder for the Body, and move the opposite shoulder forward for the Resolve.

Try this with me now:
1. One shoulder forward.
2. Both shoulders even.
3. Opposite shoulder forward.

If your mouth was slightly open, air would have quietly entered through your mouth as you shifted shoulder positions.

Episode 18 Homework Assignment.

Here’s a short script that I wrote that’s included in my book, There’s Money Where Your Mouth Is. When you read the script, shift shoulder positions at the transitions between the Set-Up/Problem, Body/Information, and Resolve/Call to Action. Begin reading it aloud with one shoulder forward.

I’ve got a problem. I think I’m becoming an ice cream snob.

But I ask you, who cares about those franchise flavors like granola peanut supreme and Hungarian chocolate when you can buy a Creamy Delite bar. You don’t just eat a Creamy Delite. You savor it. If you haven’t experienced a Creamy Delite you wouldn’t understand.

So what are you waiting for? Pick up a Creamy Delite bar and become an ice cream connoisseur like me!

Keep practicing this and other Real Talking Tips body-voice-speech communication techniques. Please take a moment to share this Episode using the purple bar below. It would be great if you’d add a positive review or comment on my youtube channel as well!. As part of the Real Talking Tips community, let’s work together to improve speech communication!