Six

There is a magic number for how many filler words are fine. It’s six. There are some people on the logical extreme, and they’ll say you need to hit zero. And sometimes that would be nice, to hit zero filler words, but in my opinion, don’t worry about it too much. Less than six per minute, and you’re probably fine. More than six per minute, and it’s probably a problem.

The reason it’s a problem is that your listeners’ brains have to process that uhh just like they do any other word. When you say the word door, or light, or jacket, for example, they have to momentarily think, what’s a door, or what’s a light, or what’s a jacket.

And when you say uhh, they have to process it too. Their brains go “what’s an uhh?” And then they realize, oh, it’s not a real word, I can discard it. And then they have to think, what was the word that came before it, and what’s the word that came after it, and they have to reconnect them.

So you’re up there talking, and you’re thinking, this is great, all these filler words give me time to think! But you are making your listeners do a lot of work, and because you’re so hard to listen to, your audience starts thinking, I don’t like this person, get this person off the stage.

Fortunately, the solution is pretty simple. You don’t have to stop taking time to think. Just fill the spaces with silence, not filler words.

Related Posts

RFP presentation tip #4

RFP presentation tip #4

Use vivid language. Use words loaded with color. Emotion. Sound. Why? If you use dead or uncolorful words, then when your audience leaves the room, they're going to forget what you said. They're going to forget you. And when you're giving a pitch presentation, being...

Slides are a crutch

Slides are a crutch

It was the most important presentation of her life. Not just of HER life. Of the lives of every single one of the people who worked for her, too. After all, their jobs at her company were how they put food on the table to feed their children. But they weren't going to...

Don’t feed the monster

Don’t feed the monster

Don't feed the monster. Kill it. You don't need prettier slides. You don't need fancy animations or most of the bells and whistles that are built into PowerPoint. You probably don't need to spend hours and hours preparing, if you're already an expert on the subject....