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Phoenix Public Speaking coaching and workshops

Public Speaking Tip #52: Making better speakerphone business presentations

Have you ever had to make a business presentation for remote colleagues over speakerphone? Despite all the whiz-bang technologies available, it’s still common to hold business meetings via speakerphone and doing so present challenges for a presenter.

Audiences cannot see your facial expressions or gestures, and they may not have a high-quality speaker system to hear you.

Here are eight tips to help you deliver a better speakerphone presentation:

  1. Test the sound quality on your end before you start. Are you close enough to the speakerphone? Are there any distracting noises on your end that can be eliminated?
  2. Encourage speakers who are not speaking to put their phones on mute.
  3. If you typically speak fast, speak slower than you would before an in-person audience. Use simple words. Make complex ideas simple.
  4. Consider sending handouts before the meeting so that participants can follow along. You may want to include a good picture of yourself with these handouts so that participants can put a face with your voice.
  5. Be careful with dry humor and sarcasm. This type of humor could be easily misconstrued without visual cues.
  6. Be careful with open-ended questions. It’s easy for people to talk over each other. Consider calling on each person by name for comments and questions.
  7. Be careful with interjections. In person, it’s nice to interject with “uh-hum” or “I see” to let the speaker know you’re listening. But, speakerphone microphones typically only let one person talk at a time and these injections can cause the sound to cut in and out. Instead, listen silently until they are done talking.
  8. If you’re using a conference bridge service to host the call, understand how to use all the technology that is available to you. Can you mute non-speaking lines? Can you take polls? Can you record the conversation and make it available later to those who missed the meeting?

Following these tips will help your speakerphone presentation be more effective. What tips would you add? Please share in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you.

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