BTR: Brevity, Tone and Resonance

The Difference Between a Good Speaker and a Great Speaker.

You can be saying something completely accurate. You can be saying something I agree with. You can even be saying something that the world needs to hear. But if your tone and resonance are not right, you can lose the audience before you’ve even finished making your point. I’ve been thinking a lot about what separates a good speaker from a great speaker, and I’ve come back to three things: Brevity, Tone and Resonance. BTR. These are three areas I’m actively working on because my goal is to become a great speaker. I understand how important they are, and I’m putting in the work to get better.

1. Brevity: Can you get to the point?

    

   Brevity is about being clear, direct and getting to the point. It’s knowing what you’re trying to say and being able to communicate it without making your audience work unnecessarily hard to understand you. 

   As speakers, we can be so passionate about our subject that we want to explain everything. We add another example, another story, another explanation, because we want to make sure people understand. I believe the more we say, the more we can dilute the message. 

   A great speaker knows what the audience needs to take away and makes it easy for them to remember it. This is why I believe so strongly in knowing your through line. What is the one message you want people to leave with? You should know the answer so well that if someone woke you up in the middle of the night and asked you, you could tell them. You would know how your talk starts, where it’s going and what the takeaway is. You would have rehearsed it so thoroughly that you aren’t standing on stage trying to remember what comes next. That preparation gives you the freedom to focus on how you’re delivering the message, rather than worrying about what you’re going to say next. And that is where the next two elements come in.

2.  Tone: How are you saying it? 

   Tone is about how your message sounds and the emotion you communicate when you deliver it. You can use the right words and still get the tone wrong. You can be passionate about something and come across as angry. Or you can try to educate someone and make them feel under attack. You can even be trying to inspire people and leave them feeling exhausted instead. I’ve experienced this myself. When I was in Bali, I recorded a podcast about Storytelling for Humans. I was frustrated about the way AI was changing how some of my clients communicated and told their stories. I was passionate about the subject, but I was also angry, and I was using the platform to express that frustration. One of my clients listened and told me I sounded angry. And she was right, I was angry. My frustration was clouding what I wanted people to hear. That experience made me think about how easily our emotions can take over our communication. We can be so focused on what we want to say that we forget to consider how we’re saying it and how it’s going to land with the person listening.

   Being passionate about a subject doesn’t automatically mean that our delivery will be effective. I encourage people to step back, process what we’re feeling and ask is the emotion we’re bringing to the message is helping people hear us or making it harder for them to listen.

3.  

   Resonance: What does your audience feel? 

   For me, resonance is about what happens when your message meets the person listening to it. It’s the feeling your words create. It’s the emotional connection between the speaker, the message and the audience. I sometimes think about it as a vibration. Two people can communicate a similar message, but the experience of listening to them can feel completely different. One can leave you feeling defensive, angry or disconnected. Another can make you feel understood, hopeful or inspired.

   The words are important, but so does the emotional experience of hearing them. Think about the difference between listening to someone who is speaking from a place of frustration and someone who has processed that frustration and can now communicate with clarity and compassion. Both people might be speaking about the same problem. The might both have valid points. But the way they make you feel can determine whether you’re willing to listen, reflect and consider what they’re saying. 

   This is where BTR becomes so important to me. Brevity helps you communicate your message clearly. Tone affects how the message is received. Resonance determines whether the message connects emotionally with the person listening. And these three things work together.