I know most of you are afraid of public speaking. I know most of you are afraid of private speaking. So what I want to do today is give you a little info on how to be better at public speaking and how to be successful with it.
Personally I don’t know why people are scared to speak in front of other people i have never had that problem. But i do know that people say that speaking in front of others is there number one fear. DAMN, that’s deep that means the majority of the world is more scared of public speaking than Aids, Death, Terrorism, Guns and the likes. That to me is amazing. With that being said im going to move on and let you think about that last statement for awhile…..are you apart of that group?
Public Speaking
1.Gesturing
What do you do with your body when you’re speaking? Normally men put their hands in their pockets. We sometimes see the oak leaf position, or the ‘phone booth’, this is when speakers hug themselves with both arms.
You will also see people do all kinds of nervous jitterbugging with their hands and arms. They really don’t know what else to do.
What I suggest is that you do use your arms and hands, but that you try to keep the movement at a minimum until you’re trying to emphasize a specific point. Use emphatic gestures and use gestures to describe things, Then when you are not using your arms, simply allow them to drop/hang naturally to the side into the neutral position.
2.Eye Contact
When the majority of people are up in front of a group the first thing they do is scan the crowd. Look: adrenaline is already shooting through your body, you’re anxious and nervous. So why make it worse by intimidating yourself by looking at the huge crowd.
What you need to do is lock onto one person when you first walk in front of the crowd and locate one person or area that you feel comfortable looking at. Then have small conversations with that person or in that area until you feel comfortable to move around and look at other people. Of course you have to make this look natural or else you’ll look like a nervous robot that’s stuck staring in one place. Eye contact is an art that must be learned and is essential for public speaking.
3. Designing visuals
In anutshel this means kep your visual aids easy, simple and understandable. you’ll look so silly standing before a group of people if you dont understand your own visual aids. You’ll Make your job as a public speaker so much easier and useful to your audience if you really take the time to prep and learn your visuals before you present it.
One key point that alot of people forget to do before they speak in front of a group is to really do a full practice run of what they will say, and do in front of the real audience. This can be a big help, it’ll ease your nerves and help you look more professional to your crowd.
Tip No. 4: Humor and jokes
We receive a lot of questions about this. “Should I start with a joke?” Should I loosen things up with some humor in the beginning?”
Let me ask you…How many people do you know who can actually come into a room full of strangers and pull off a joke? Not many, so i would definitely say that you should not start off with a joke in most circumstances. Because you are extremely nervous, and you have no idea how the crowd is. Their mood as a collective group could be dim and focused meaning they want you to give them what they came for and nothing else. Or it could be the opposite, and your crowd could love you to start off with a joke. But one thing I will say to open your eyes a little bit is this. Humor is hit or miss and NO IN BETWEEN. If you tell a joke and it works, good they are on your side. but if it fails then you will lose them early on and probably will never have their full attention for the rest of your presentation, so you decide is it worth it.
If you do use humor one good way to start off is self depreciation. you don’t have to degrade yourself but letting your audience in on one of your flaws might loosen them up a bit. If you’re late and you’re giving a speech to a group of Fed Ex Higher up’s (who is well known for ALWAYS being on time). you might want to start off with a few time management jokes to ease the pain.
5. Inflection and volume
Have you ever been to presentation where the presenter spoke in a monotone, “It’s- great-to-see-everybody-Thank-you-all-very-very-much-for-coming-today-I-am-going-to-really-give-you-an-exciting-speech”….Yeah right, BOOOORING!
You want to increase and decrease your volume, and increase/decrease your voice inflection, which means the variance in the pitch or the tone of your voice. It is more interesting, and more exciting to listen to a presenter that shows passion and excitement in their voice. Speak to your audience with belief and you’ll soon see they will share that belief.
Public Speaking is not hard you just have to take time to learn the art. Have fun improving your character and personality and you’ll soon see that public speaking is as easy as talking to yourself in a room with no one else in the house.
