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Empowerment Tip
Minimize Junk Words and Vocalized Pauses

Using colorfut powerful words enhances the perception by others that you are self-confident. It is also important to minimize the use of words and phrases that dilute the impact of your speech. Such junk words and vocalized pauses convey the impression of low self-confidence-especially in a professional setting. Phrases such as "like/' "you know/' "you know what I mean/' "he goes/' (to mean he says), and "uhhhhhh/' are not compelling. Using these junk words and vocalized pauses detracts from a sharp communications image.

An effective way of decreasing the use of these extraneous words is to tape-record your side of a phone conversation and then play it back. Once you hear how these words detract from your speech effectiveness, you can monitor your own speech for improvement.

Back up Conclusions with Data
You will appear and feel more self-confident if you back up your spoken presentations with solid data. One approach to obtaining data is to collect it yourself, such as conducting a telephone survey of your customers. Marty Del Prince, the sales manager of an office-supply company, wanted to start a delivery service for his many small customers, such as dental and real estate offices. He telephoned a good sampling of these accounts and found they would be willing to pay a premium price if delivery were included. Marty used these data to support his argument, thus convincing the company owner to approve his plan.

Convincing data for your arguments can also be obtained from published sources. Be specific about the source of your data, rather than say, "Research shows that ... " Supporting data for hundreds of arguments can be found in the business pages of newspapers, business magazines and newspapers, and electronic data-retrieval services. An inexpensive yet trusted reference for thousands of arguments is the Statistical Abstract of the United States.

Dian Winters, a retailing executive, wanted to expand into Sacramento, California. At the time, other members of top management were reluctant to open new branches in smaller markets. Early in her presentation, Susan said, "As many of you know, Sacramento is the thirtieth largest market in the United States, with a population of close to 1.3 million people and growing." Her data-based comments created a climate of acceptance for the rest of her presentation, and Susan's expansion plans were approved.

One caution here, however, is not to rely on research so much that you appear to have no faith in your own intuition. For example, you may convey an impression of weakness if when asked your opinion, you typically say, "1 can't answer until 1 collect some data."