London, UK
In the 1970′s Coventry City had a goalkeeper called Bryan King. He became infamous for the amount of “you knows” he used in a television interview. Fast forward to 2010 and here’s the highly skilled Aston Villa winger, Ashley Young, also struggling to make himself understood!
We don’t really expect our talented footballers to have a mellifluous turn of phrase do we? Besides it would be incongruous. But for those of us in business who need to present our ideas clearly and concisely, lacking clarity or stumbling over our words will inevitably mean lost opportunities. Worse still, you’ll lose credibility amongst your peers and potential customers.
One of the ways in which you can come across better is to slow your speech right down. At tv presenter “school” a few years ago, I along with the other students, were asked to watch and record the television news. Then we’d copy the style and speak at the same rate or words per minute. You see newscasters tend to speak at a slower rate than we do in normal conversation. As a result, you’re able to easily understand them. Try slowing down, you may find it’ll help you.
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