Public Speaking

Here are few basic guidelines of public speaking to help you speak well, confidently and passionately.

1. Do not apologise: People generally only notice your mistakes when you draw attention to them. Do not tell people you have forgotten something, they don’t know that. Just take a pause, have a drink of water and move on.

2. Speak slower: You are almost certainly speaking too fast. Slow down a bit. Speaking slow makes your speech/talk easier to deliver, and makes it easier for the audience to understand your message.

3. Speak to the back of the room: If you’re projecting your voice to the back of the room then you know everyone can hear you. If people need to strain even the littlest bit to hear you, then you’ll lose the backroom listeners immediately.

4. Pause: The pause is one of the most effective tools in public speaking. It emphasises the point you just made. It allows your audience to digest information. It grabs people’s attention. It allows you to compose yourself and remember what’s next.

Don’t be afraid to pause, even for 10/15 seconds – it feels a lot longer to you than to your audience.

5. Look at your audience: Do not look at the slides behind you – have a copy in front of you so that you never turn your back. But do not always look at the copy in front of you, use this only for reference. Don’t look at the floor or at the walls. Try and take the time to make eye contact with every person in the room. Even if you only make eye contact once, an audience member will come away feeling as though you spoke directly to them.

6. Remember your audience wants you to do well: They are there because they want to learn and want to be entertained. Even if they were forced to attend, they still want to get the most out of it. They want you to succeed. They are on your side, even if it doesn’t feel like it to you.

7. Practice: We often only speak to an audience during the most important and stressful events of our life. So, take the time to practice in situations where there is less pressure: practice on groups of co-workers or your pets, view some speeches or talks on the internet like TED or TEDx (These are event where live talks and performances are shared with the community), or get one-to-one coaching from a professional. It cannot be emphasised more that how important practice is.

Reference/Citation/Source

• Public speaking
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_speaking
• The 7 basic rules of public speaking
  https://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/in-business/advice/basic-rules-public-speaking/