What’s your speaker persona?

“Your inner public voice craves clarity of mind to grow. So enjoy your discovery here! Questions welcome at jill@liveyourtalk.com.”

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Four Speaker Personas

These select speaker personas are offered to help you perceive the engagement-linguistic part of you; where your strength & confidence stand right now, and where you want to grow to best uplift your audiences.

No persona takes precedent over any other. Each can benefit or undermine audience experience in three core ways:

sense of service + language + physicality

You certainly may be a mix of these. But be open and direct about your growth goals as well. Your interests to develop will help reveal where your voice stands developmentally at this present crossroads.

When it comes to serving your audience, you mostly lean toward the presence of others; you are pretty open to being visible and people often stimulate you. 

When it comes to your use of language, your passion for people often transmits as its own lexicon – vivid and expressive. You enjoy your subject matter but precision of words is not necessarily where you invest your preparation time or concentration.

When it comes to physicality, the stage can be a release for your people-energy. You like to pace back & forth often briskly. The stage arena is less of a defined tool as it is an outlet. You’ve observed though that if you walk less or stand at a podium, that “ums and uhs” get more intense when speaking.

Potential cautions or curiosities for this profile:

Sometimes you (or even your audience) wonder if your exuberance for people distracts from a cohesive message. You also wonder: could your physical stage energy better support your storytelling?

When it comes to serving your audience, you view your listeners as an ideal destination for your subject. A chance to precisely impart knowledge matters to you. 

When it comes to your use of language, the words and data need to be accurate. Presence of word-dominant slides or use of notecards or scripts helps you stay true to your thoughts and self-assurance.

When it comes to physicality, the podium is a useful source of structure. It often provides a comfortable place to lean as you look up to the audience from your projected slides or notes. If you depart from slide deck or script, you notice however “ums & uhs” start to pop out more as you articulate.

Potential cautions or curiosities for this profile:

Sometimes you (or even your audience) wonder if prioritizing precision hinders your sense of ease. You also ponder: Am I relying on the podium (or slides or script) to engage my own comfort-level instead of my listening guests?

When it comes to serving your audiences, you focus well one-on-one and as needed, engage also in small teams. Your presence of mind is strongest when communicating with a single individual, and giving them your fullest concentration.

When it comes to language, you cultivate fluid exchanges with individual colleagues, your boss, or small gatherings of a handful of familiar associates. Expression of your ideas is forthcoming in such instances, and you take satisfaction in being resourceful.

When it comes to physicality (within your comfortable audiences noted above) you have realized on occasion your eye contact, vocal range, and natural gestures are activated well. You also have noted that “ums and uhs” get more frequent when you are unexpectedly addressed in a large meeting; or in some cases you speak really fast as if without any punctuation. Otherwise, you speak with clarity of purpose.

Potential cautions or curiosities for this profile:

Given your consistent effectiveness in one-on-one conversations and smaller more focused meetings, you recognize the wisdom in building your strength for larger presentations (especially with your professional growth in view). You also wonder: how can I be more confident when speaking to larger groups?

When it comes to your audience, you mostly talk to screens vs to the in-room presence of others. You are confident & open to engaging anyone on screen: from the one-on-one with your child’s teacher to the sales pitch to your team’s next brainstorm session.

When it comes to language, you appreciate the Zoom meetings in particular (or Hangout or FaceTime or Skype) that come across as more deliberate regarding content. Silent air time in screen meetings feels exponentially longer than when offline, so you normally prepare action items or an agenda when you can before meetings (hoping to prevent dead air and keep focus).

When it comes to physicality, even though engagement cues are harder sometimes to detect in this dynamic, you find the screen is a mostly accessible forum with useful constraints. You have noticed though that whether or not you prepare talking points that “ums and uhs” emerge more when you speak.

Potential cautions or curiosities for this profile:

At times, you have wondered why the “ums and uhs” pop up so much when screen-talking. You also ponder: how can I ensure screen meetings better prepare me for ultimately being a stronger offline speaker?

What do you think?

Which persona most resonates with you?

Theater graphic Overture by David Carmack Lewis, Creative Commons License

Image Discover by Snap43, Creative Commons License