Public Speaking – The Art of making speeches
Overcome your fear of public speaking with our top tips for a successful speech.
Table of Content
- Does Public Speaking Fill You With Fear?
- See Nerves as a Contributor to Success
- Pay More Attention to Your Audience
- Your Audience is Not the Enemy
- Be Yourself
- Talk to the Audience, Not Your Slides
- Public Speaking Works Best when You Tell Stories
- Add Humour
- Move Around
- Practice
- Get Help With Your Public Speaking
1. Does Public Speaking Fill You With Fear?
Fear of public speaking tops the list of phobias for most people. And if the thought of giving a speech or business presentation fills you with dread, then you can suffer sweating, shaking, and a quavering voice, not to mention a desire to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, being told that anxiety is perfectly natural doesn’t always help. Some people may even recommend simply ignoring your nerves, which is easier said than done. But did you know that nerves have a valuable purpose? Rather than allowing them to overpower you, try to work with them because they can actually improve your public speaking.
2. See Nerves as a Contributor to Success
Presenting to a gathering of even a few people is enough to trigger every fear you have ever had about public speaking. Will you make a fool of yourself? Will the audience judge you poorly? Will they understand your message? Will they stop liking you because of something you say?
Mastering the art of public speaking may not be comfortable, but take our word for it, nerves help because they keep you alert and sensitive to the situation. They empower you to notice more and react quicker, which can help to improve your delivery.
Feeling nervous about something means you want to succeed at it. In fact, without nerves, we would all be extremely poor at public speaking because no one would care about what they said or did.
3. Pay More Attention to Your Audience
When public speaking, it is natural to worry about whether you look and sound okay, and whether you are conveying your message clearly. But this is all inward focus that only serves to increase your anxiety. It also prevents you from focusing on the most important part of the presentation: your audience.
The audience may not be talking to you, but public speaking can still be a two-way dialogue. Their expressions of interest, boredom, agreement, and disagreement give you vital feedback.
As you begin your speech, start monitoring the audience’s reactions so you can adjust your delivery for maximum effect. Furthermore, you often find that your nerves start to dissipate if you focus on the audience rather than yourself.
Here is a great tip for forcing yourself to focus on the audience. Before you begin your speech, try to notice things about them. For example, how many people are wearing something red? How many people are wearing glasses? Answering these simple questions will help you get into an outward-facing frame of mind.
4. Your Audience is Not the Enemy
Public speaking is usually one person standing in front of a group, which has the effect of making you feel outnumbered. Yet most of the time, you will be presenting to people you know, or with whom you share a common goal. They may be your business colleagues, and some may even be your friends.
Unless you know your audience is hostile, most of them want you to succeed. Remember that everyone has a fear of public speaking, and human nature helps us to feel sympathy for those in difficult situations. Chances are your audience has the same sympathy for you.
5. Be Yourself
Never mimic another person’s public speaking style because you may come across as false. Certainly, there are presentation skills that help you become a better public speaker, but great public speakers base their style on their own unique personality.
This is also why becoming overly focused on the dos and don’ts of public speaking can be counterproductive. There are no fixed rules, and knowledge and passion are often all you need to convey a subject well. Your objective is to use public speaking best practice to improve your own natural style.
This is equally true if you decide to undertake a course on public speaking. There are no one-size-fits-all methods for public speaking, and courses should develop your own style rather than force you into adopting one. They should focus on enhancing what you do well rather than leaving you with an extensive list of things to avoid.
6. Talk to the Audience, Not Your Slides
The focus of professional speaking should always be on the speaker rather than their slides. After all, if it was just about reading slides, we could all do that at our desks.
Make sure your speaker support is exactly that – something that supports your spoken delivery. Ideally, pick powerful graphics and images that illustrate what you are saying. If you need to use words in your slide deck, follow our tips for creating great PowerPoint Presentations.
7. Public Speaking Works Best when You Tell Stories
No matter how dry your material is, you can always find a way to humanise it with stories. This is particularly true if you use personal experiences that bring the content to life.
Using stories when public speaking not only provides examples and metaphors that illustrate concepts, but also helps people to see you as a person and not just an information delivery mechanism.
8. Add Humour
Humour keeps people interested and upbeat during public speaking events, but it helps to be honest about your sense of humour and ability to make people laugh. A punchline with no punch may not help your cause.
If you are unable to tell jokes, then simply use gentle humour every now and again. Self-deprecation can be well received but avoid overdoing it or you may change the way the audience perceives you.
9. Move Around
If you stay in one place while public speaking, so does your audience, and sitting perfectly still increases the chances of even the most interested audience falling asleep. Watch great public speakers in action and you often notice they make full use of the stage.
Walking around means the audience needs to move their heads and shift their position to follow you. Try to use a good portion of the available space, or increase your body language if the space is confined.
If you need a reason to keep moving, try leaving your speaker notes in one place and move to another. That means you have to cross back to retrieve them. Incidentally, doing things to keep your audience awake is one of our seven laws of great presentation skills.
10. Practice
When it comes to improving your public speaking, we have three words. Yes, you guessed it: practice, practice, practice. Practicing on your own is essential but be aware this is only useful for getting the words right.
The best practice happens in front of a live audience. It gives you the opportunity to sharpen your ability to read the audience’s expressions and develop ways to adjust your delivery to bring out the best reaction.
11. Get Help With Your Public Speaking
Public speaking can be a tough art to master and even seasoned public speakers undertake continuing professional development to perfect their art, whether through courses, coaching or mentoring.
With professional guidance and practice, you will quickly find that you can capitalise on your anxiety and deliver engaging and inspirational speeches to every audience.
Check out Impact Factory’s courses
Open Public Speaking Courses
Tailored Public Speaking Training
Five-Day Intensive Presentation With Impact Workshop
One-to-One Public Speaking Coaching
