We are living in a professional world. You might have possess great expertise but you'll always be judged on your
speaking skills. In public speaking the message and you are the same in your audience's mind.
Every time you open your mouth to speak, you have two choices. You can
inspire, make the sale, get your message across, influence others, and
make a powerful impact; or you can bore, lose the sale, embarrass
yourself, or, worst of all, make no impression whatsoever.
Being well-prepared will not only make you a more powerful speaker, it
will instill confidence and help you overcome your public speaking
fears.
Steps to become a powerful speaker:-
- Know your audience - Research
and study your audience. Knowing your audience's age range, interest,
education, work, ethnic background, and marital status, if it is
relevant to your talk is very important.
- What is the end result of your speech - What’s really at the heart of your speech? By knowing that in hand you can create a powerful punch that drives home your message instead of rambling on and losing your audience’s interest.
- Your Competence - If audiences understand your level
of knowledge and experience, they will simply trust you more. Every one
of us is at his or her best when we talk about something that matters to
us deeply.
- Sound - Alter your pitch, volume, speaking rate, inflection, stress and word coloring. The less monotone, the better.
- Grab their attention - Use humor, quotations and rhetorical questions to get them thinking about your speech.
- Be passionate - Believe and care about what you say. If you don't
believe on what you talk no one will. Remember people may disagree with
you, but they will respect you.
- Be yourself - Imitating
other powerful speakers won't cut it for you. Your audience will know
immediately and you will loose your trust.
- Be creative - Even if you are speaking to the first graders if you are not creative for their level you will be bored.
- Ditch the technology
- When preparing your speech, try saying your thought out loud a few
different ways. Keep doing it until you hear the best way. Now write it
down. Don't first prepare your lousy presentation or write down an
uninspiring story and then practice it. You will bore your audiences to
death.
- Share a story -
Although not everyone will be able to relate to your story but letting
the audiences know that you share their values tend to warm
up the audience.
- Delivery Skills - Every
audience will be judging you--whether you like it or not, and whether
they know they're doing it or not. Approaching your speech as more of a
“me-to-you” discussion rather than a
full-blown broadcast will make it more manageable (and less stressful)
and easier on you.
- Move around - A top speaker uses the maximum space given to him to deliver his speech.
Use your hands and gestures to engage the audience visually.
- Don't let technology overpower your speech - PowerPoint presentations are great for making specific points, but they can be overwhelming and boring.
- Focus on the big picture rather than all the pieces - That is to say end your speech with the same message you began with.
