Make a Strong Impression Every Time You Speak
You can find excellent professional speakers with impressive credentials and experience wherever you go. How did they achieve their skills? And can you become as good as they are?
Understanding the mechanics and fundamentals of professional speaking is essential to becoming a dynamic, powerful speaker. If you’re already dynamic and powerful, learning additional skills will help you shine even more when you get up in front of a group of people.
And what if you’re afraid or avoid speaking in front of others like you avoid sitting in rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon? Then you just haven’t gotten the specific information you need to turn fear or nerves into energy and power. We are wired to avoid discomfort; getting a bit comfortable being uncomfortable sets you up for great success.
Speaking skills give you an edge, an advantage of being perceived as more intelligent, promotable and interesting.
Here are five tips guaranteed to make you a more effective speaker:
Always involve your audience. Whether you ask them to raise their hand following your question or turn to each other to respond to something, always get them involved almost immediately. It offers an incredible number of benefits including you can relax—the emphasis is off you—and the audience will feel more engaged.
Always pause for two to three seconds before you start speaking. This allows you to learn you don’t have to rush to answer, helping you feel more comfortable, and it teaches your audience you are comfortable and don’t have to fill the silence with those annoying ums and uhs we hear from uncomfortable or nervous speakers.
Rehearse the first 15 seconds to the first couple of minutes the most. The reason is simple, you are the most nervous at the beginning of a presentation and this is when you make your first impression. Grab the audience at the beginning and regardless of what happens later, they will be on your side, you’ve already won them over. If you don’t grab them at the beginning then you’ll be playing catch-up, trying to win them over throughout your entire speech.
Be memorable. Say or do something that is not in the norm. As an example, I use sleight-of-hand because people are visual learners and throwing in a bit of magic sets the stage for the unpredictable. Nothing will put a group to sleep faster than predictability.
Never memorize a presentation. Learn in simple chunks so regardless of what happens, you will be able to remember where you were in a presentation, and then rehearse/practice as much as you can. Rule of thumb is one hour for every minute you speak.
There are many tools to help you become a better speaker, and it’s definitely worth the effort. You can always work with me one-on-one via Skype or Zoom as well. Advantages include:
- Awareness of where you need to improve- we can’t see ourselves (alternative-video yourself)
- Learn at your own pace
- Tailored to your needs and strengths
- Increase your skill level in all aspects of speaking
I’ve been speaking for years – learned many lessons the hard way – and this is the kind of comments I hear after every presentation (this one on Halloween in Orlando):
“Thank you for the fabulous presentation you gave today. Your presentation was filled with motivational content and you engaged the audience in ways which kept their attention and focus. The illusions were quite remarkable as well as entertaining. Judging by the number of people who stayed after the presentation to speak with you, they loved you!”
All of us can be dynamic speakers; it’s a skill worth cultivating, something you can always use!
Roscoe Drummond was credited for saying the mind is an amazing thing, it starts working the second you’re born and never stops until you get up to speak in public! Speaking can be fun, and it’s an excellent tool; you just never know when you’ll be asked to stand up and speak. All you need is to be prepared!
