Читать книгу Speak Out With Clout - Charles Boyle - Страница 9

It’s been said that Sir Laurence Olivier could read from the telephone directory and an audience would be entertained. I don’t believe that. I do believe that there are comedians who could make an audience laugh by reading from a telephone book while popping their eyes, waving their arms, and jumping up and down. But Sir Laurence was not a comedian; he was a great actor. I believe he and other great actors could take a dull speech and with voice inflections, tone quality, and other vocal and gesticulating skills, turn that dull speech into a crowd-pleasing, masterful performance. Unfortunately, most of us are not great actors, and if our speeches are to be crowd-pleasing, we need to have something to say.

Some people in this world subscribe to an opposite theory. Dr. Victor Heiser, a missionary doctor to Samoa, tells about one of the Samoan customs. More than 60 years ago, Dr. Heiser was being honored by a Samoan king. Following a presentation made by the king’s spokesman, Dr. Heiser was getting to his feet to accept it when a Samoan doctor pulled him back to his seat and said, “We have arranged a speaker for you.” The doctor then explained that in Samoa they do not believe that a man who is a good physician is necessarily a good speaker. “We have our own speakers who do this on special occasions,” he continued, “and you can be sure that he will say what you were intending to and do it better.”

Evidently, Dr. Heiser must have told that story many times because American companies picked up the habit of hiring surrogate speakers during the 1950s and ’60s. They would be given a title, usually vice president of public relations, and then go out and talk to civic groups about their employer’s business.

Worse yet, some companies hired speakers who were not even employed at the company and paid them to go out and speak on their behalf. But the public isn’t buying the mercenary approach any more. Most audiences would rather hear a less polished speaker who is sincere and knows what he or she is talking about than a smooth talking outsider telling how great his or her client’s industry is, when it’s obvious that it’s just for a paycheck. Even more damaging is the question and answer period, when it becomes obvious that knowledge about the client’s business is extremely superficial.

During the 1970s many companies began to realize that if the message was going to be accepted by the public, companies would have to speak for themselves. I think they’ve gone a little too far when bank presidents go on television to do commercials, but in meeting the public face-to-face, not only the presidents but the employees of companies are much better received and are far more believable than the speaker who talks to a group one month about the virtues of the free enterprise system, and the next month about the necessity for government intervention in certain industries. Furthermore, the public doesn’t like the idea of paying $30 for a product and realizing that $2 of the $30 are going toward the salary of a speaker to tell them how low the price is.

For this reason, some companies have a speakers bureau made up of employees who volunteer their time to address service clubs, community groups, PTAs, and any other organization in need of a speaker. These employees are given a very brief period of training in public speaking, but the rest of their time is spent doing the job they were hired to do, which may be as engineers, accountants, service representatives, or supervisors. When they are introduced to an audience, they are introduced as a telephone company employee and not as a paid surrogate. Their credibility alone more than makes up for any shortcomings they might have as polished, public speakers.

In the next chapter, I hope to show you how to eliminate or minimize those shortcomings. In the meantime, the primary element needed for a good speech, before form and style, is a message. The message must have the following ingredients: knowledge of your subject (the doctor and medicine, the lawyer and the law, the employee and his or her company), sincerity, and a desire to share your message with others (the employee forced into a speakers program is the wrong person to be speaking).

Which brings up a provocative point. You have a message on a subject about which you are knowledgeable; now how do you share it with others? How does one get speaking engagements?