One Minute Pause No 4

This is a subject so dear to my heart that it had a lot to do with this newsletter being named One Minute Pause.

So here goes:

When making a presentation, our ability to shut-up, or pause, is as important as the spoken component.

Why? There’s bucket loads of reasons.

I led a presentation skills workshop at Bosch 4 years ago and the group gave me 9 reasons or benefits to doing so. That’s 2.5 flipchart pages in trainer talk.

I think they are all as good as each other.

Choose your favourite three, but whatever you do, please make sure you shut-up from time to time when you make a spoken presentation. At the end I’ll let you know the perfect length for pausing.

1. Pausing gives the audience a chance to digest what you’ve just said. Too many ideas belted out in a row, and you’ve lost ‘em.

2. Pausing emphasises a point. Kind of like during those dramatic times in Corrie, Neighbours or General Hospital. It would be rubbish if they kept on talking during the stunned “I’ve just found out something I shouldn’t know” bits.

3. Pausing gives you a chance to gauge the audience. Especially those who are glazing or nodding off.

4. Pausing gives the audience a chance to ask questions. You don’t want to seem like a fast-talking car salesman do you? Give it a break and let the audience ask “how much?”

5. Pausing separates ideas.

6. Pausing replaces habitual conversation fillers. (ummm, aaahh, basically, you know, innitt)

7. Pausing gives you a chance to collect your thoughts. Or take a breather, check the time, have a sip of water or flash your lovely teeth. Juergen Krammy from Bosch tried to convince me that they were all separate benefits. They’re not Juergen. You are still gathering your thoughts, just in different ways.

8. Pausing helps you gain control of a rowdy audience. Exactly like schoolteachers used to do. Just don’t try detention, it may not work in business.

9. Pausing makes it seem like you’ve got an inner peace thing going on. A bit like Ghandi. People love it and think you’re well in control. Just try not to close your eyes too much during your pause; people can think there’s something wrong with you.

Finally, before you scurry off, you might be wondering about the right natural length of pause.

The answer? Well, one minute is a bit indulgent really, unless it’s this newsletter of course.

Shoot for four seconds. It will seem like an eternity, but the audience don’t think so.

I know, we’ve measured it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 8th, 2005 at 1:23 pm and is filed under One Minute Pause. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.