QuickBites: 7 Ways Silence Improves Your Presentations.

Welcome to QuickBites, public speaking tips and techniques you can digest in five minutes or less. In this episode, you'll hear seven ways to implement pauses in your upcoming presentations, so you and your audience members will have greater interaction — even when they can't respond out loud. When you're developing a presentation, you likely give careful thought to the words you're going to use. But how often do you consider the pauses? My guess? Seldom, if ever. Hopefully that'll change when you see how that often-ignored pause can transform what would otherwise be a rambling monologue into an engaging, interactive presentation.

Pauses That Build Engagement

1. Pause at the beginning of your talk. Taking three to four seconds before you speak allows you to initiate eye contact, establish confidence, and develop engagement with your audience. It might feel awkward at first, but you'll quickly see how effective this technique really is.

2. Pause after you share a point. Give your audience time to internalize and digest information. You know what you're going to say. Your audience doesn't. If you don't pause, your listeners will either disregard what you said or try to figure it out — and miss what you say next. Either way, you lose them.

3. Pause instead of using fillers. Inserting fillers — um, uh, you know, right? — is prevalent because many presenters are uncomfortable with silence. But it's not really the fillers that audiences find so irritating. It's the lack of silence. When you use fillers, you interrupt your listeners' thought process. Doing this once or twice won't necessarily harm your presentation's effectiveness, but when it becomes noticeable, it can be as unnerving as fingernails on a chalkboard. Remember this: people regularly complain about how often a presenter uses fillers. They seldom complain about how often a presenter pauses.

Pauses That Sharpen Your Delivery

4. Pause for emphasis. Pause before sharing a word, thought, or idea you want to emphasize. This allows your audience to lean in, knowing they're about to hear something noteworthy, exciting, or even surprising. To add even more significance, pause directly after saying it as well.

5. Pause after asking questions. Asking questions — actual or rhetorical — is a powerful and subtle tool for influencing your audience. But for it to be productive, you must provide sufficient time for your listeners to answer in their minds. When you don't allow this time, your questions serve little purpose. When you repeatedly skip it, you risk losing your audience altogether.

6. Pause when advancing to a slide. It's natural to start referencing a slide immediately after it appears, but it's not effective. Instead of asking your audience to listen to you and decipher the slide simultaneously, pause for two to three seconds. This gives them enough time to see and process the slide — and when you begin speaking, your words and the slide work together.

7. Pause to invite interaction. Want to not only engage your audience but get them actively involved? Pause and invite them to insert a word or finish a sentence. Accompany the pause with a gesture to make the invitation clear. Singers do this to perfection — they sing a line, then point out to the audience, prompting them to sing the next. You can do the same.

There they are — seven opportunities to implement pauses in your upcoming presentations. Use them and you'll gain greater confidence. And your listeners will experience higher levels of comprehension and retention. Thank you for listening to this episode of Public Speaking with Peter George. Are you ready to be calm, confident, and credible every time you speak in public? Then visit petergeorgepublicspeaking.com and let's make it happen. I'll see you next time.