What Color Speaker Are You?

You always need to stay true to your speaker color
You always need to stay true to your speaker color
Image Credit

All speakers are not created the same. In fact, I think that it’s pretty safe to say that no two speakers are the same. What this really means is that as speakers we all fall into one of several different “color buckets”. Knowing which color bucket you are in is an important part of realizing the importance of public speaking and becoming an effective speaker.

Red Speakers

Although this list of different speaker “colors” is not intended to be a complete list, it should give you a sense of the differences between speakers. The first type of speaker is the red speaker which includes those speakers who are the emotional and charismatic type of speakers.

These are the speakers that when we watch them we know that they truly believe in what they are talking about. They tend to pound their fists, walk around quickly on the stage, and both raise and lower their voices a lot. Clearly they are very emotional people.

Yellow Speakers

In a nutshell, yellow speakers are the fakers. These are the speakers who are telling us something that they themselves don’t believe. They may be trying very hard to convince themselves that what they are saying is correct, but deep down inside they don’t believe it themselves.

The problem with being a yellow speaker is that when you are saying one thing and believing another thing, it is going to show. When this happens, the audience is going to become confused and they are not going to know what to think about the message that you are delivering.

Green Speakers

No, we are not talking about environmental speakers here. Rather green speakers are the speakers who are the most intellectual. These are the heavy thinkers who always seem to have a different way of looking at the topic that they are talking about.

Once we’ve identified someone as being a green speaker, an audience will generally be open to hearing what they have to say. The reason for this is because they feel that they are going to learn something from this speech that they may not already know.

What All Of This Means For You

As speakers we all fall into one of these three “color buckets”. Yes, one of the benefits of public speaking is that we may even switch buckets depending on what type of speech we are giving. However, the one thing that we need to realize is that we never want to come across as being a yellow speaker.

If you don’t believe what you are talking about then your audience is going to pick up on that. Your effectiveness as a speaker is going to be very limited because you are not going to be able to convince any audience to change the way that they think. Sure some people will listen to you, but they won’t take any action based on what you tell them.

Being aware of what “color” speaker we are is a critical first step in understanding how we can connect with our audiences. If we can realize how our audience sees us, then we can create speeches that will be able to reach out and touch them. That’s how speakers can change the world with their speech.

– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: If you find that you are a green speaker, do you think that you can change into a red speaker?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.
P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Communicator Newsletter are now available. Subscribe now: Click Here!
 
Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

What’s the worst thing that speaker can do when delivering a speech? Not get to the point! Your audience is left wondering just exactly why they were willing to sit there though your speech when it seems as though there was no real reason for you to give the speech. What this means is that we’ve got to sharpen up our speaking abilities and get to the point!